LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE AGE OF FAITH 



BY 



I 



/ 
AMORY H. BRADFORD, D.D. 



(( 



\\ 



?» u 



author of spirit and life, 

" "heredity and christian 



the pilgrim in old 

ENGLAND,'" 

problems," "the growing 
revelation," etc. 




r 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(CI^E 0itEr?itie f^re??, Cambribge 

1900 

L- 



80502 



Library of Congr«s« 

Iwo Cop<ES Received 
NOV 26 1900 

A Copyright eoiry 

SECOND COPY 

0«l<v6red to 

ORDER DIVISION 

DEC 101900 







COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY AMORY H. BRADFORD 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



To The 

REV. JAMES H. ECOB, D. D. 

My dear Ecob: — 

For more years than I care to enumerate here we 
have been friends. We have studied together, worked 
together, traveled together. In your writings I first 
found the phrase, " Interpret God by his Fatherhood." 
Therefore, without asking your permission, I venture 
to write your name in this book, not knowing, nor 
caring very much, whether you will approve, so long 
as I have the opportunity of acknowledging my obliga- 
tion to you, and my love and admiration for you. 
Very sincerely yours, 

AMORY H. BRADFORD. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction vii 

I. The Age of Faith . . . . . . .1 

n. The Conception of God 26 

III. God — Interpreted by Fatherhood . . .51 

IV. The Basis of Optimism 74 

V. Brotherhood 103 

VI. Suffering and Sorrow 136 

VII. Sin .167 

VIII. Salvation 192 

IX. Prayer 215 

X. Punishment or Discipline 233 

XI. The Immortal Life 268 

Xn. The Teacher for All Ages .... 285 



INTRODUCTION 

This is an age of faith. This book is an effort 
to state some of the truths which most need em- 
phasis in such an age. 

The days of authority are gone. No one any 
longer believes anything simply because it was for- 
merly believed. " Is it reasonable ? " Even reve- 
lation is brought to this test. The truth for an 
age of faith above all other things must be reason- 
able. Whatever contradicts reason and the moral 
sense cannot be of God. Whatever harmonizes 
with reason and the moral sense presumptively is 
true. 

Among the subjects which need emphasis in a 
time of inquiry, moral earnestness, and eagerness 
to believe whatever is approved by the intelligence 
and conscience, I venture to give a prominent 
place to the following : The Personality of God, 
The Fatherhood of God, and the fact that all theo- 
ries about God, man, and the universe should be 
interpreted in the light of the Fatherhood. These 
furnish a sure basis for optimism ; they show that 
the brotherhood of man is universal and vital ; that 
suffering and sorrow are means in the hands of 



viii INTRODUCTION 

love for the perfection of human character, and 
indispensable to human progress ; that sin is an 
incident in the upward movement of the race, 
not necessary, but always possible ; that salvation 
is the sure purpose of omnipotent love ; that prayer 
is the natural and necessary intercourse between 
parent and child ; that what is called punishment 
is always disciplinary, and intended to restore ; 
and that the deathless life follows of necessity 
because man is of the same nature as God, and, 
therefore, must partake of His immortality. 

But all human interpretations would be fallible 
and uncertain, however true the principle on which 
they were based, unless there was an infallible 
guide. That infallible guide Jesus promised, and 
the ages are realizing, in the person of the Holy 
Spirit, the Spirit of Truth who will lead into all 
truth and show things to come. Christians are 
disciples of the Spirit of Truth, and they wait rev- 
erently and expectantly for the disclosures of the 
future, while they honor and trust the revelations 
of the past. 

These are some of the truths which require 
emphasis in an age of faith. 



THE AGE OF FAITH 



THE AGE OF FAITH 



In attempting to estimate the characteristics of 
an age, there is always the danger that eddies in 
the current of thought and life will be confused 
with the river, and that incidents in history will 
be studied as if they were important events. 

The time in which we live has been called an 
" Age of Doubt," and the eminence of the author- 
ity has led not a few to believe that the character- 
ization is accurate. A narrow induction of facts 
may lead to that conclusion, but more thorough 
study and wider knowledge will result in a differ- 
ent conclusion. Instead of being an age of doubt, 
in comparison with other times, this is an age of 
faith. 

Of course much depends on definitions.. If by 
faith is meant such assurance as results what is 
from demonstration, or if it is held to 
signify belief unsupported by reasonable evidence. 



2 - THE AGE OF FAITH 

then this is not a period of faith. But if faith is 
willingness to act on evidence which the senses 
cannot verify because " the passional motives," to 
use the words of Professor James, issue their com- 
mand, then in no other age of the world's history- 
has faith played a more prominent part. By it I 
understand willingness to follow the intuitions, the 
spontaneous convictions, the affirmations of the 
heart, always with good reason, but without waiting 
for the intellect to be convinced. Faith is willing- 
ness to act where duty calls, but where sight is im- 
possible. For instance, I believe in God, not be- 
cause His being can be demonstrated, but because 
my heart hungers for Him, and only the hypothe- 
sis of His existence explains the mysteries of our 
mortal life or justifies the presence of man on the 
earth. 

He who reads French, Italian, and indeed much 
The Age of ^^ German literature, may easily imagine 
that pessimism is the dominant note of 
modern thought ; but French novels are not the 
world's literature, and a few German pessimists 
are neither the expounders of all the world's phi- 
losophy nor its best representatives. We see what 
we try to see. It is not difficult for earnest souls 
to get beneath the surface of life, and become 
acquainted with its deeper principles and inner 
forces. Such are never entirely without faith. 



THE AGE OF FAITH 3 

Defining faith as willingness to act on intuitions, 
or convictions of what is true and right, not be- 
cause they have been proven, but because the whole 
man asserts that they ought to be true, I find that 
it is so widespread and so predominant as to jus- 
tify me in calling this an age of faith. But a 
statement so far-reaching, and so unlike the views 
which have been popular, requires more than affir- 
mation ; it needs justification. 

Few persons feel more keenly than I the bale- 
ful influence of current skepticism. One must 
be blind not to see that it has infected the well-to- 
do classes, penetrated schools and colleges, and 
found its way even into factories, and clubs for 
working men and women. This I fully recognize 
and sadly confess — but this is by no means all 
that a study of our time discloses. 

Let us begin in the field where doubt is often 
supposed to hold undisputed sway. Here science and 
we must observe that doubt and inquiry 
are not synonymous terms. The impression pre- 
vails that science, in taking nothing for granted 
and daring to ask questions concerning all beliefs 
sacred in the past, cultivates doubt. Exactly the 
opposite is true. The fundamental assumption of 
science is that something is real, and that that 
reality may be discerned. No man would spend 
his life in wearisome investigations if he were con- 



4 THE AGE OF FAITH 

vinced that, as the result of his labors, he would be 
left in the same darkness in which he began them. 
The scientist is of necessity a man of faith. He 
searches for something in which he believes, al- 
though for him, when he begins, the object of his 
quest has only imaginary existence. Faith, as an 
intellectual attitude, is the same whether it affirms 
the law of evolution or the being of God. Darwin 
used faith as truly as Paul. They had the same 
mental attitude, although their minds were di- 
rected to different objects. An astronomer turns 
his telescope toward some part of the heavens, not 
because he has ever seen a planet in that field, but 
because the perturbations of another planet have 
led him to believe that if he searches long enough 
there his efforts will be rewarded. 

The scientific spirit distinguishes our time. 
Science is the affirmation by faith of an undiscov- 
ered but discernible reality. 

Twenty-five years ago, Professor Tyndall found 
in matter the promise and potency of all life. In 
the year 1898 Sir William Crookes, speaking from 
the same position as that occupied by Tyndall, 
declared that to-day science finds in life the promise 
and potency of all the material universe ; and he 
further said that the difference between his state- 
ment and Huxley's marks the progress of science 
during the quarter century. Science does not 



THE AGE OF FAITH 5 

doubt, it inquires. An interrogation point is a 
positive, rather than a negative sign. Individual 
men may announce themselves agnostics concern- 
ing this doctrine or that, or this creed or that, but if 
they are truly scientific at heart, of necessity they 
conform to the definition of faith in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, because they believe where they cannot 
see. " Faith is the evidence of things not seen.'* 
When a scientific man reaches the deeper realities, 
he must bow before them, whether he is aware of 
their nature or not. It is these realities which he 
is seeking, and not the mere outsides of things. 

One may say, " I have searched, and have found 
no spirit in man and no God in the universe." If 
he has finished his quest and is satisfied, he must be 
numbered among skeptics, but if with a willingness 
to accept whatever the future may reveal he con- 
tinues the search for the essential reality, he must 
be numbered among the men of faith. 

The proportion of men of science who are deeply 
religious is larger than many think. In the Brit- 
ish Scientific Association the Christian members 
maintain a daily prayer meeting. Lord Kelvin is 
an elder in a Scotch Presbyterian church ; Profes- 
sor Young, the Princeton astronomer, is, or was, 
an elder in an American Presbyterian church. 
George J. Ko manes after long wandering in the 
deserts of agnosticism came back to a child's faith. 



6 THE AGE OF FAITH 

Agassiz was a devout believer in God. John L. 
Gulick, who in the opinion of Mr. Romanes has 
made more original contributions to the doctrine of 
evolution than any scientist after Darwin, is a 
missionary of the American Board in Japan ; Sir 
William Dawson finds a divine revelation in the 
rocks ; Asa Gray used to delight in saying that he 
was an evolutionist and also a believer in the 
Nicene Creed. Few books have done more to 
strengthen faith in immortality than the " Unseen 
Universe," the joint work of Professors Tate and 
Balfour Stewart. Henry Drummond was both a 
professor of physical science and an evangelist. 
If this is an age of science, it is of necessity an 
age of faith, since the scientist trusts his own intel- 
lectual processes, which is one act of faith, and 
believes in a reality behind phenomena, which is 
another act of faith. 

I turn now to literature. Here at first the skeptics 
Literature sccm to havc the field, but once more I 
insist that a thorough induction of facts 
will show that faith is a distinguishing characteris- 
tic of the age. Zola, Paul Bourget, and Brunetiere 
in France may be skeptics ; John Morley, Frederic 
Harrison, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Thomas 
Hardy, to say nothing of Matthew Arnold and 
George Eliot, who have recently died, may be 
agnostics, although some of them would deny the 



THE AGE OF FAITH 7 

title. Skepticism may predominate in France, but 
how is it in England and America ? The Scottish 
school of fiction is just now most prominent in the 
literature of the English speaking world. What a 
rare company of literary artists are included in 
this list ! MacDonald, Stevenson, Barrie, Crockett, 
Ian Maclaren, all are known as devout believers. 
Three of them, MacDonald, Crockett, and Ian 
Maclaren, have preached as well as written the 
gospel. 

Writers of fiction and poets are the best inter- 
preters of the thought and life of a people. The 
fact that no novels are so popular as those 
which treat of religious subjects shows where the 
hearts of the people are. *' Quo Vadis," " The 
Christian," " All Sorts and Conditions of Men," 
" Eobert Elsmere," " Marcella," may contain little 
that is positively religious, but their popularity 
shows that the people believe in vital religion, 
rather than in ecclesiastical forms, and that 
they are ready to listen to any who, brush- 
ing aside all that is merely traditional, dare to 
speak of the things which they have seen and 
of which they have heard. In this country the 
best fiction has had a basis of religion. " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin," " The Scarlet Letter," " Elsie Ven- 
ner," "Old Creole Days," "A Singular Life," 
all show deep faith in God and man. The book 



8 THE AGE OF FAITH 

with the widest circulation of any written in the 
last decade, namely, " In His Steps," is a sermon 
story whose sale is reported to be in the mil- 
lions, a book which may not be fine art, but which 
is noble literature because it inspires to high think- 
ing and noble living. The most potent and en- 
during literary force in Europe is Count Tolstoi, 
a thinker whose creed may not square with the 
early theology of New England, or the more re- 
cent theology of New Jersey, but a man with the 
courage of a warrior and the vision of a prophet, 
who has penetrated deeply into the heart of human 
life and found that character is the sublimest thing 
of which an author can write or for which a man 
can seek. 

When we turn to the poets, the great voices 
The Witness uttcr no Uncertain sound. Who that re- 

of the Poets. i t> • rn T n 

members Jirowmng, lennyson, Liowell, 
Whittier, and Sidney Lanier, can think of calling 
this an age of doubt ? Quotations are hardly 
necessary, for these writers were veritable prophets 
of God. Eecall Browning's " Saul " and " Cleon." 
Listen to the refrain in " Pippa Passes : " — 

" God 's in His heaven — 
All 's right with the world ! '' 

That reveals the basis of sublime and deathless 
optimism. Again listen to this from " A Death in 
the Desert : " — 



THE AGE OF FAITH 9 

" I say the acknowledgment of God in Christ, 
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
AU questions in the earth and out of it, 
And has so far advanced thee to be wise." 

This is a definite and noble statement of the 
doctrine of the Incarnation. 

Tennyson was the prophet of faith. He be- 
lieved in — 

" That God which ever lives and loves." 

He evidently described himself in what follows : — 

" He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 
And laid them : thus he came at length 
To find a stronger faith his own." 

We must not forget the first stanza of " In Me- 
moriam : " — 

" Strong son of God, immortal Love, 

Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace. 
Believing where we cannot prove." 

No better illustration of faith was ever written than 
is contained in that stanza. 

I need only to mention Whittier's " Our Master " 
and " The Eternal Goodness," while passing on to 
two selections from other American poets. Sidney 
Lanier was a child of song. He seemed like a 
strain of music which had become incarnate. Was 



10 THE AGE OF FAITH 

anything more dainty and exquisite, yet noble and 
true, ever written than his " A Ballad of Trees and 
the Master " ? 

" Into the woods my Master went, 
Clean forspent, forspent. 
Into the woods my Master came. 
Forspent with love and shame. 
But the olives they were not blind to Him, 
The little gray leaves were kind to Him : 
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him 
When into the woods He came. 

" Out of the woods my Master went. 
And He was well content. 
Out of the woods my Master came. 
Content with death and shame. 
When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 
From under the trees they drew Him last : 
'T was on a tree they slew Him — last 
When out of the woods He came." 

That music could never have floated out into liter- 
ature from a chilly atmosphere of doubt. It is a 
beam from the sunlight of faith. 

Richard Watson Gilder has written what he 
calls "The Story of a Heathen, Sojourning in 
Galilee, A. D. 32." It bears all the marks of being 
its author's confession of faith. 

" If Jesus Christ is a man 
And only a man — I say 
That of all mankind I will cleave to Him, 
And to Him will I cleave alway. 



THE AGE OF FAITH 11 

" If Jesus Christ is a God 
Atfd the only God — I swear 
I will follow Him through heaven and hell, 
The earth, the sea, and the air." 

I must offer one more illustration — the wonder- 
ful prayer of Robert Louis Stevenson : " We be- 
seech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favor, folk of 
many families and nations, gathered together in 
the peace of this roof ; weak men and women sub- 
sisting under the covert of Thy patience. Be 
patient still ; suffer us yet a while longer with our 
broken purposes of good, with our idle endeavors 
against evil — suffer us a while longer to endure, 
and (if it may be) help us to do better. Bless to 
us our extraordinary mercies ; if the day come 
when they must be taken, brace us to play the man 
under affliction. Be with our friends, be with our- 
selves. Go with each of us to rest ; if any awake, 
temper to them the dark hours of watching ; and 
when the day returns, return to us our sun and 
comforter, call us with morning faces, eager to 
labor, eager to be happy, if happiness shall be our 
portion, and, if the day be marked for sorrow, 
strong to endure it. We thank Thee, and praise 
Thee, and, in the words of Him to whom this day 
is sacred, close our oblation." 

There is much pessimism in the literature of our 
time. There are novelists and poets who are satis- 



12. THE AGE OF FAITH 

fied to soak in slime and allow its filth to ooze from 
their pens. But this writing is not literature ; it 
is not healthy, nor wholesome, nor sane ; it is not 
beautiful nor true. The vileness which masquer- 
ades in the garments of literary art does not sug- 
gest the morning of a new day, but rather, let 
us say, one already far advanced toward a dismal 
sunset. 

The Frog Pond is not Boston, the Bowery is 
not New York, and the drivel of unclean poets 
and the foulness of the fleshly school in fiction 
are not the literature which is fashioning ideals 
most characteristic of our time. A deeper and 
finer music is making itself heard. The literature 
which is destined to influence the future, like the 
great works of the masters of the past, is that 
which treats of the hunger of the soul for God, for 
immortality, for reconciliation, and of the answers 
to these longings, which must be divine because 
they so completely satisfy. 

No diagnosis of our time would be at all ade- 
The Witness quatc which did not recognize the large 

of the Study ,.,.,. . , , 

of compara- placc which IS beiuff sriven to the study 

tiveReli- ^ . 7 . . 

gion. Qf Comparative Religion. This also re- 

veals a deep current of thought which is making in 
the direction of faith. This interest in the Ethnic 
Religions is more than unrest ; it is more than 
curiosity ; it is evidence that men feel the existence 



THE AGE OF FAITH 13 

of some deep reality behind phenomena. Not alone 
to satisfy curiosity have the Sacred Books of the 
East been translated. There is spiritual unrest. 
The Americans, like the Athenians, are always 
anxious for some new thing, but that unrest and 
anxiety are not self -caused. They are the product, 
if I mistake not, of an intellectual attitude which 
may properly be called faith, since it is search for 
truth undertaken with the expectation that the 
quest will be rewarded. The search may be some- 
times half hearted, but the desire to know is 
usually genuine, and the purpose to accept what 
is made known is, to say the least, worthy of 
respect. 

The Parliament of Religions may not have been 
prophetic, but it was significant. It was The Pariia- 

ment of Re- 

not an exhibition of disloyalty on the ligions. 
part of believers in any religion. It was rather 
an object lesson in the universality of faith. In 
that gathering were Buddhists, Parsees, Moham- 
medans, Jews, and Christians. The mental and 
spiritual differences between those present were 
greater than the differences in their physical ap- 
pearance, but all were alike in one respect. They 
were men of faith. They believed in something, 
and they believed that to that something they 
owed supreme and unfaltering loyalty. The atti- 
tude of mind was the same in Buddhist, Moham- 



U THE AGE OF FAITH 

medan, Confucian, and Christian, although the 
objects toward which faith was directed were 
different. That Congress represented the world. 
The supreme force in the progress of the world 
is religion. All nations are more or less religious, 
and, we may add, more or less ethical. The basis 
of religion is faith, since it always deals with the 
unseen. The prevalence of religion is evidence of 
the reality and universality of faith. 

The Sacred Books of the East have been trans- 
lated under the editorship of Professor Max 
Miiller, and thus the Bibles of the world are now 
within the reach of all who wish to read them. 
But that is not more significant than the competi- 
tion for their publication. At first they were held 
at prices practically prohibitive. Quickly com- 
petitors who knew the fascination of the subject 
for the reading public brought the works within 
the reach of even the poor, and now the Zend 
Avesta, the Trepitika, and the Koran are widely 
studied by those who are the leaders of religious 
thought. It is not enough now for a religious 
teacher to know his Bible ; he must know the 
Bibles of other nations before he can intelligently 
plead for foreign missions and the evangelization 
of the world. 

This does not indicate decadence of religion, 
but rather a broader culture on the part of those 



THE AGE OF FAITH 15 

who teach, and a more intense desire to be able to 
present truth rationally and satisfactorily. Doubt- 
less curiosity is the motive behind this study with 
many, but not with the more intelligent or more 
spiritual. The opening of the non -Christian world 
and the study of the Ethnic religions have given 
new and vaster significance to faith. The paper 
prayers on the walls of Buddhist temples ; the 
processions of worshipers that wearily climb the 
steeps of Mayahsan ; the pilgrims that year by 
year visit Mecca; the hosts that throng Lourdes 
and Ste. Anne de Beaupre, may have very false 
ideas as to the Deity and the worship which is pleas- 
ing to Him ; they may be very superstitious, but 
they have the right mental attitude, and when a 
real and rational gospel is presented, most will 
grasp it with avidity and delight. The time has 
passed for us to think of those in non-Christian 
lands as all inspired by the Evil One. 

If those who will to believe sometimes learn the 
truth, as they surely must when the revelation is 
clearer, thousands who now bow before Amida 
Buddha and prostrate themselves at the muezzin's 
call will join in placing on the head of our Christ 
the many crowns. 

This has been called the age of criticism as well 
as of science. Literary criticism is really the ap- 
plication of the scientific spirit to literature. It 



16 THE AGE OF FAITH 

subjects all writings to inspection and analysis, and 
Criticism a upon all passcs its judgment. Did " the 

Sign of 

Faith. blind old bard " write our Homer ? That 

is a question. Did Shakespeare write the plays 
which bear his name ? Some persons are very sure 
that he did not. Thus the process moves on until 
it reaches the Bible. " Thus far shalt thou come, 
but no farther," say those who identify truth with 
tradition. But the critics reply : " The greater 
the claims of sanctity for any book, or any person, 
the more rigorously those claims should be tested." 
Truth'cannot suffer at the hands of investigators. 
Critics are like artists who discover beneath the 
dirt of a century the work of a master. " Do not 
touch that canvas," say those who have regarded 
it worthy of a place in some famous gallery. 
" Scrape it and you will spoil it," they vocif- 
erously affirm. But the process of cleansing 
goes on, until out of the accumulated filth of 
years there shines the beauty of a Raphael or a 
Murillo. Were those who renewed that canvas 
the enemies or the friends of art ? Their work is 
analogous to the task of the critics who take in 
their hands the Holy Bible, and unwind one wrap- 
ping of tradition after another, until the truth 
itself shines with a brighter lustre. These men do 
not study day and night for years, denying them- 
selves the prizes of the world, for the mere delight 



THE AGE OF FAITH 17 

or shocking pious people. Neither pleasure, wealth, 
nor fame, is the reward of their labors. They are 
impelled by a desire for truth, by faith in its 
reality, and by confidence that it may be discovered 
if the quest is patient and thorough. 

I am speaking of the deeper currents of thought 
and investigation. Critics are human. Among 
them, as among artists and authors, and, for that 
matter, among preachers and scientists, are many 
whose spirit is selfish and whose manner is flippant. 
Bombast for a time may attract more attention 
than merit ; but lasting work is always genuine. 
Egotism is ephemeral. The master minds of every 
age are reverently loyal to truth so far as they 
know what is true. 

The new movement in theology is a part of the 
critical movement. Its leaders are not Faith the 
skeptics, but men of faith. They do not New Move- 

I • I'll rrM • • • mentinThe- 

emphasize their doubts. Ineir opinions oiogy. 
are not those which were commonly held a gener- 
ation ago, but they are not therefore less positive 
or well founded. The passage from one school of 
thought to another should brand no one as an un- 
believer. The butterfly is not a skeptic because 
it is no longer willing to crawl on the earth as a 
worm ; and those men who feel that they have 
passed from a region of fogs and miasms to a clear 
and splendid intellectual horizon are possessed of 



18 THE AGE OF FAITH 

a faith in God and man that is positive and assur- 
ing. They have no faith in their former world as 
best for them now, but they have profound faith in 
the ampler world into which they have grown. They 
never believed so intensely, so joyously, so victori- 
ously, as since they came into the freedom of the 
spirit, and dared to bring every creed to the test 
of the inner light as well as to that of the Scripture. 
The critics and the newer theologians are not seek- 
ing to undermine confidence in anything which 
ought to endure ; they are only trying to remove 
whatever obscures the light of the eternal realities. 
The new movement in theology is the renascence 
of faith. 

Rome in the time of Augustus was hardly more 
Current givcu to rcligious fads than are the so- 
o?Faithf^^ called Christian lands, as the nineteenth 
century draws to its close. It seems as if some 
new phase of religion were born each day. This 
is not altogether a cause for discouragement. 
Who are these claimants upon out attention? 
They preach a gospel of Hypnotism, Occultism in 
varying forms. Spiritualism, Faith-Healing, Chris- 
tian Science, Mental Science, and so on through a 
long list. I have called these teachings " fads," 
not because they do not contain much that is true, 
but because they take facts out of their right rela- 
tions and give them a prominence which in the 



THE AGE OF FAITH 19 

nature of things can only be temporary. The 
relative amount of truth and error in these teachings 
I need not try to determine. But one point is 
important and that is this : They all illustrate the 
universality of faith, since all of them rest on evi- 
dence which is entirely in the sphere of the unseen. 
None of them can offer any proof different in kind 
from that which is offered in support of the being 
of God and the immortality of the soul. The 
growth of Christian Science, for example, reminds 
one of those waves of emotion which swept over 
Europe in the Middle Ages, filling the monasteries, 
and inspiring the Crusades. The motive is right, 
but the reason and the judgment are not properly 
consulted. Science is discarded, and momentous 
conclusions are adopted for purely sentimental rea- 
sons. The spirit underneath most of these move- 
ments is noble and Sometimes self-sacrificing. The 
woman who will die rather than deny her conviction 
that God is good, and therefore that there is no 
sickness, has the same spiritual heroism as the mar- 
tyrs in the heroic age of the church. She is wrong 
in her use of faith, but right in the fidelity with 
which it is used. 

Yet the " fads " of the day all illustrate our 
point that this is essentially an age of faith. 

I come now to one of the most significant and 
prophetic facts of our time. " The crusade of 



20 THE AGE OF FAITH 

charity " has gathered momentum from the Advent 
until now. It had its orisrin in the teach- 

The Crusade ^ ° 

an ^Evidence ^^S ^^^ persoH of Jesus Christ. Even 
of Faith. those who have denied His divinity have 
freely granted the power of His beneficent example. 
In the last few years charity has assumed many 
new forms. They are seen in the various social 
experiments and especially in a few of the social 
settlements. This limitation should be observed, 
for most of the social settlements are positively 
Christian. A few who work in them, and in the 
spirit of Christ seek to serve humanity, say that 
they have no religious convictions whatever. They 
will affirm no belief in God, in a spiritual nature 
in man, or in immortality, and yet they are pos- 
sessed with a consuming passion to serve their 
fellow men, and their service is as sacrificial and 
as successful as that of those who are more willing 
to affirm beliefs. Look a little deeper into this 
fact. These persons are not infrequently those 
who have had serious losses, or grievous disappoint- 
ments, and have undertaken this work because they 
believe that thus alone can their own wounds be 
healed. At least they do believe that the service 
of their fellow men has a balm for sorrow. More 
than that, a man's belief is to be judged by what 
he does rather than by what he says. These per- 
sons would not sacrifice as they do for trees nor 



THE AGE OF FAITH 21 

for marble monuments. In other words, they be- 
lieve in spirit in man. They would not labor and 
sacrifice as they do if they were assured that every 
one whom they serve would at death utterly cease 
to be. They may say they have no belief in life 
after death, and yet they are working to make 
others fit to live and grow beyond the grave. 
These noble workers at least have faith in human- 
ity, and that its service will return a blessing to 
them. Thus their work is an expression of faith 
as real and as inspiring as that of those who say 
that they are sure of God as they are of them- 
selves. 

The inspiration of modern charity, even of those 
forms whose enthusiasts most protest that they are 
faithless, is the same in kind as that of the martyrs 
and the missionaries. They are fired by a belief 
in a reality which can neither be seen nor demon- 
strated, but which nevertheless controls their con- 
duct and leads to consecration and sacrifice. 

I have not entered into a consideration of any of 
the distinctly Christian or philanthropic „, . . 

•^ ^ ^ Christian 

movements of our time, yet their trans- JhTOpi?^"" 
forming influence it would be hard to ufusSe*^ 
exaggerate. No finer literature has been 
written in this century than works like those of 
Newman, Liddon, Fairbairn, Samuel Harris, and 
George Adam Smith. The finest lyric poetry is 



22 THE AGE OF FAITH 

found among Christian hymns. The noblest mod- 
ern oratory is still in the pulpit despite all that has 
been said about its decadence. The most far- 
reaching, successful, and influential enterprise of 
modern times is that of Christian missions, which 
has followed pioneers and explorers around the 
world, and planted schools and churches where 
commerce and armies have been slow to enter. 
But while these have hardly been mentioned, they 
have their place in the life of the world, and must 
be studied before the characteristics of this age can 
be understood. They illustrate the pervasiveness 
of faith. The world lives by faith. It is univer- 
sal and elemental. 

This is not the saddest time since the Caesars. 
No Room for There is a widespread and subtle melan- 

Pessimism. i i • i m t i 

cnoly m many quarters, lennyson did 
write " Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After," but 
still later than that he wrote " Crossing the Bar," 
and went away into the Unseen to the music of an 
anthem. 

That many do not hold the old faiths in the old 
forms is readily granted. Nor can there be any 
question that with the increase of wealth and lux- 
ury there has grown a feeling of irresponsibility 
which bodes no good to the church or the world. 
The millennium has not yet dawned, but men, as 
evidently as in the older ages, are living by faith. 



THE AGE OF FAITH 23 

They are knocking on Nature's door as insistently 
as ever. We do not knock on Nature's door if we 
believe that there is no one behind to hear. The 
knocking is proof of belief in the existence of some 
One able and willing to respond. This is emi- 
nently a time of inquiry. The spread of learning 
and the growth of knowledge have resulted in a 
desire to know more and to be surer of what has 
been held to be true in the past. Every movement 
to explore the universe is a prayer to God for a 
fuller and clearer revelation of Himself and His 
will. The eagerness with which so many are test- 
ing their old beliefs and reaching out for wider 
knowledge is a most hopeful sign of the times. 
While men think and inquire, there is danger 
neither of unbelief nor pessimism. The words of 
Jesus have eternal significance. " Seek and ye 
shall find ; knock and it shall be opened unto you." 
This is the age of the seekers after reality, after 
God, after the truth concerning man, ^ after the 
meaning of sorrow and suffering, after something 
satisfying concerning what lies beyond death. The 
confession in " In Memoriam " has been used by 
many, not as a doubter's wail, but as the voice of 
those who truly believe. 

" I falter where I firmly trod, 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's alLar-stairs 
That slope through darkness up to God, 



24 THE AGE OF FAITH 

" I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, ^ 
And gather dnst and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 
And faintly trust the larger hope." 

What are the truths which need emphasis in an 
age when the masses of men see through a glass 
darkly, but still are anxious for more light ? They 
will accept nothing on authority. The days of 
dictum are over. Nothing will have power now 
which does not convince the reason and satisfy the 
heart. Tradition can transmit only what it has re- 
ceived. There is nothing divine in age or essen- 
tially true in newness. We must teach and preach 
the truths which have actually convinced and satis- 
fied us ; which we believe and can commend because 
of what we have seen and experienced. The gospel 
for an age of faith, a gospel which makes life 
worth living, rings the knell of pessimism, begins 
and ends in the revelation of God, who in all the 
eternities and infinities, in His dealings with this 
world and all worlds, is truly made known in Jesus 
Christ, who in His earthly life. His unwearying 
service. His matchless teaching. His self-sacrificing 
death, and His victory over the grave, was "the 
brightness of the Father's glory and the express 
image of His person." 



THE AGE OF FAITH 25 

That glorious Gospel of the Fatherhood, the 
only gospel for an age of faith and inquiry, and 
the only rational basis of optimism, I shall endea- 
vor to interpret in the chapters of this book. 



n 

THE CONCEPTION OP GOD 

The desire of nearly all thinking people for a 
clearer idea of what is meant by the word God is 
slowly but emphatically finding expression. One of 
the results of the spread of learning and the growth 
of intelligence is the tendency of the masses to 
grapple with the difficult problems of speculation. 
This inquiry touches the religious life at every 
point. How should we pray ? To whom shall we 
pray ? What is meant by Providence ? What 
reason have we to believe in the ultimate triumph 
of truth and right ? It is a commonplace to say 
that men are always like their ideas of Deity, — 
that where those ideas have been lofty, men have 
been noble and good; where they have been un- 
worthy, men have been sensual and depraved. 
Our theme is not abstract, indefinite, and purely 
speculative ; it is intensely human and practical. 

The greatness of this theme is best appreciated 
Greatness of ^J thosc who havc studied it most thor- 
" ^^^ * oughly. It has been the quest of phi- 
losophy in all ages. I do not present the thoughts 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 27 

which follow in this chapter because I have any- 
new light to shed upon this subject, but rather in 
the hope that I may help a few to clearer think- 
ing on lines which have long been familiar to the 
world's religious teachers. At first it seems easy- 
enough to answer the inquiry, Who or what is 
God ? But a little effort will show that it is diffi- 
cult to put into speech even a small part of the 
content and suggestion of the word. Words are 
inadequate for the expression of our deepest 
thoughts and much more for that of our profound- 
est feelings. Behind human speech flash hints of 
a world that cannot find expression. Infinite, ab- 
solute, eternal, God, are only like x in the alge- 
braic equation; they stand for depths of thought 
and sentiment that beat in vain against our human 
limitations. This subject is found to be more dif- 
ficult the longer it is studied. If the idea of God 
is limited, it can easily be defined ; if it is at all 
adequate, it transcends definition. 

Who and what is God ? Shall we say that He 
is the Creator and Preserver of the uni- ^he Prob- 
verse ? But what is the universe ? That ^^' 
word also is only a symbol for the unknown. No 
one mind can comprehend the greatness of the 
earth. St. Peter's Church in Rome seems smaller 
than it is because it cannot be seen at a glance. 
Mont Blanc lifts itself in solemn splendor ; it may 



28 THE AGE OF FAITH 

be looked upon, climbed, surveyed, but it is an 
endless study. And tbe Himalayas are loftier 
than the Alps. Before great mountains, or when 
sailing on the Pacific or the Atlantic, ask. Who 
and what is God? Then look up into the great 
wide sky ; note the procession of the stars, — the 
systems and galaxies of worlds whose number can- 
not be estimated ; remember that they are but the 
outmost fringe of the universe; and then ask, 
What do you mean by Creator and Preserver ? 
The ' distances are measureless ; the spaces are 
boundless ; the constellations are without number. 
We are in the presence of thoughts too great for 
us. Every time a prayer is offered and the word 
God is mentioned, it has relation to infinite space, 
measureless distance, multitudinous worlds, and to 
the power that holds them in their places. What 
do you mean by Creator ? Has some being de- 
signed this universe as a man designs a house? 
What do you mean by Preserver ? Is there some 
one who holds worlds and planetary systems in 
his hands, and watches over them as we watch 
over the things which we manufacture ? This 
problem we must try to solve. On some solu- 
tion of it every religion of the world rests. Not 
a sermon can be preached nor a prayer be in- 
telligently offered that is not preceded by some 
answer to the question, What is meant by God ? 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 29 

Still more searchingly the inquiry is pressed upon 
us, How can there be a person great enough to be 
Creator and Preserver of the universe? Is not 
the universe the all ? And is there any place or 
space outside the universe in which a person can 
dwell ? If there is no such place or space, then is 
He not a part of the universe ? And if He is a 
part of the universe, or if He dwells in it, is not the 
universe itself God? Then is not the Pantheist's 
contention true — that the all is God ? that He 
rises to consciousness only in the consciousness of 
human beings ? that He loves only in human beings 
who love? that He hates only in human beings 
who hate ? that He comes into manifestation in the 
splendor of dawns and the glory of sunsets, in 
earthquake-tragedies and the violence of terrible 
storms ? 

At the outset we meet certain evident facts. 
Only through something human can know- The Human 

^/^(^IiicIg of 

ledge of God be conveyed. Man must Revelation. 
be known before God can be known. We must 
believe in the trustworthiness of human facul- 
ties before there can be any Bible for us. Reve- 
lations from God come through the mental fac- 
ulties of men to the mental faculties of men, and 
belief in God is impossible without prior belief in 
man. We rise through the human to the divine. 
If any message comes from beyond the stars, it 



30 THE AGE OF FAITH 

must be in a form adapted to our limitations. With 
reverence we say tliat if God speaks to us expect- 
ing to be understood, it must be in human lan- 
guage ; and if He uses a voice, it must be a human 
voice. If the heavens were to open and He were 
to speak otherwise than in the terms of our limi- 
tations, we should fail to understand the message 
and the messenger alike. 

Again, the supposition that man can know any- 
Kinship of thing of God depends on the prior fact 
that there is something of God in man, 
even at his worst. How may we know that the 
voice which speaks to us is divine ? Only on 
the presumption that there is something divine 
in man. The God within man recognizes the God 
without. 

'" A stone cannot interpret a logical process ; a 
mountain cannot respond to music. There must 
be harmony of nature before there can be mutual 
recognition. One man appreciates another because 
there is kinship between them. I recognize the 
message which comes from my father because my 
father in a real sense lives in his son. In like 
manner I recognize what comes from God only as I 
have in myself something of God. This is not the 
result of a process of regeneration, else there would 
be no possibility of making effective appeals to 
the unregenerate. Christians believe in missions ; 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 31 

tliey send missionaries to preacli in the dark places 
of the earth. A beastly man in the heart o£ 
Africa, a degraded woman in a great city, must 
have in them something of God, or it is folly to 
send missionaries to them. The work of ministers 
and missionaries presupposes in the vilest some- 
thing divine. A mountain is impervious to the 
men who climb its flanks, and men would be 
equally impervious to divine appeals if there were 
not something divine in them. " Only the good 
discerns the good." Only a being akin to God 
can recognize God. 

Another point is equally evident : the finite can 
never fully explore the infinite. The im- 

*^ ^ Revelation 

perfect can never comprehend the perfect. JkTn^f^^^" 
The limited cannot compass the unlimited, ^^o^i^^^g®- 
How, then, may the imperfect and the limited have 
knowledge of the perfect and unlimited ? Only as 
the greater being reveals himself. No man by 
searching has found out God. Our senses may 
discern something which we know to be not our- 
selves, but what it is we cannot adequately define. 
If, then, there is ever knowledge of God, it will 
be because He chooses to make Himself known. 
Therefore we say revelation is the condition of 
knowledge. That is recognized in all religion, all 
science, all philosophy, and all theology. Men 
study the universe because they believe that it is 



32 THE AGE OF FAITH 

the expression of something behind. Mountain 
and meadow, sea and sun, flower and constella- 
tion, and man himself, all in a measure manifest 
the Being by whose will they exist. The universe 
exhibits power, law, order ; man exhibits intelli- 
gence, will, feeling. These revelations have mes- 
sages for all who are able to read them. " First 
the natural, afterward the spiritual," but that is 
only in the order of knowledge. In the order of 
being the spiritual is first, and the natural after- 
ward. 

These three thoughts are fundamental : — 

All knowledge of the divine must be gained 
through the human. 

There is something divine in man, or he could 
know nothing of God. 

God never can be known unless He reveals 
Himself. 

Man and the universe are both to be studied as 
revelations, expressions, manifestations, of 
wse^tobe^ Somc One behind them. We do not pro- 
studied. CQQ^ very far in our investigation before 
we learn that all material objects show the effects 
of intelligence ; that matter is determined, but that 
behind it is something self-conscious and self -deter- 
mining ; that body is dependent on that intelligence 
which we call spirit ; that spirit is the ultimate 
reality ; and that it uses, orders, regulates the body. 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 33 

Nature is as evidently the abode of spirit as is a 
human body. I employ the word " spirit " simply 
because it is the common word — I mean, o£ course, 
that there is something behind matter which uses it, 
and by which it is controlled. When an attempt 
is made to analyze that something in humanity, we 
find that it shows signs of intellect — it knows ; 
of feeling — it loves ; of will — it chooses. That 
something in man constitutes his personality. But 
in him it is limited. We now make a necessary 
inference : that which is imperfect in man suggests 
perfection somewhere; that which is limited in 
man somewhere must be unlimited. A word in 
common use in theology and philosophy is " Abso- 
lute," which means the perfect, the unlimited, the 
infinite. Imperfect and narrow intelligence in a 
human being implies unlimited and infinite intel- 
ligence somewhere or everywhere, as one ray of 
light shows that there is a universe of brightness. 
You cannot imagine one ray of light as seK- 
existent, and with no companions ; it is a revela- 
tion of that fountain of splendor from which it 
came. So it is with the mind, heart, and will of 
man. A ray of intelligence suggests a limitless 
mind ; a single volition suggests infinite will ; one 
throb of human affection tells us that somewhere 
and somehow love is measureless and eternal. The 
limitless mind, the infinite will, the perfect love, 



34 THE AGE OF FAITH 

we call the Absolute ; or, turning from philosophy 
to religion, God. Rising from the human to the 
divine ; from intellect, feeling, and will in their 
limitations to their perfection, we have what we 
mean by God. These three characteristics dis- 
tinguish personality. A being who has will and 
affection without intelligence, or intelligence and 
affection without will, is not a person. Personality 
is bound up with ability to know, to feel, and to 
choose. When these three in their limitations are 
united in a self-conscious being, we have a person in 
humanity. The perfection of intelligence, of love, 
and of will, in a single self-consciousness, is God. 

The word " person " as commonly used cannot 
Meaning of hc uudcrstood by a reference to its etymo- 
logy. Originally it referred to the mask 
through which an actor spoke — that through 
which the sound came. But this meaning quickly 
gave place to that of the being behind the mask. 
In the Hindu philosophy, and in all the pantheis- 
tic forms of religion, the etymological significance 
of the word is still retained, but in occidental 
thought, both theological and philosophical, " per- 
son " refers to being. By personality we do not 
mean any mere manifestation, but essential being. 
The Absolute is the being in whom reason, will, 
and love are united in perfect and therefore infi- 
nite self-consciousness. 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 35 

We have now only just approached our subject. 
From the limited personality we have risen to the 
infinite personality. Here our real difficulty begins, 
for no one by any possibility can comprehend the in- 
finite. We see a ray of light expanding toward the 
sun ; it is lost in splendor, but what is hidden in 
that splendor not even imagination can fathom. 
From the personality of man we look up toward 
the personality of God. But the line along which 
thought moves quickly transcends our ability to fol- 
low, and soon all is greatness, glory, and infinity. 
Such inquiries as these now press themselves upon 
us : Where is this Person whom we thought that 
we had found, and to whom we had given a name ? 
Is He outside the universe ? Then the universe is 
not the All, and there is no universe. Is He in- 
side the universe ? Then is not the universe itself 
God ? These questions we cannot answer. But 
the analogy of man may help a little. 

The spirit in man is not the body. It is inde- 
pendent of it ; it uses it, and yet it tran- God the Spirit 

of the 

scends it. Bunyan was confined in prison, universe, 
but his spirit climbed the Delectable Mountains 
and passed through the gates of the Celestial City. 
Milton was blind, and was tied to a woman who 
could not appreciate him, but his spirit went back 
to the creation and on toward the consummation, 
rose to the loftiest heavens and penetrated to the 



36 THE AGE OF FAITH 

deepest hells. The body may hamper the spirit, 
but cannot imprison it. Body and spirit are not 
identical. Beethoven's ears were deaf, but his spirit 
was thrilled by heavenly harmonies. If we say 
that the universe is all, that there is no space or 
place outside, and yet think of God as the spirit of 
the universe, we do not identify Him with the uni- 
verse, any more than we identify body and spirit 
in man. The spirit which constitutes man mani- 
fests itself through the body, and yet is not the 
body; and the Infinite Spirit manifests Himself 
through the material universe and yet is not that 
universe. In a sense Goethe was right : " The uni- 
verse is the garment of God.'' Through it His 
glory shines, and yet He is not the garment. The 
architect of Cologne Cathedral is revealed in his 
work. So God is revealed in the universe — with 
this difference : the cathedral has an existence apart 
from its architect, but the universe has no existence 
apart from God. He is the principle of its life ; 
by Him it is sustained ; by Him it is preserved ; in 
Him it exists. Does this mean that the material 
universe is eternal? Here again we are getting 
beyond our depth. The universe has been in a 
state of constant change. It has not always been 
as it now is ; but that it has always been the ex- 
pression of the infinite Spirit seems to me to be the 
only answer that can be given to that question. 



THE CONCEPTION" OF GOD 37 

My thought, then, is this : The relation of God, the 
Spirit, to the universe is figured, or indicated, by 
the relation of the spirit in man to the body. The 
Deity is the spirit of the universe ; not dependent 
upon it ; not imprisoned by it ; but always mani- 
festing HimseK in all its changes and evolutions. 

But still we are only a little nearer to an answer 
to our question. An infinite and everlasting Spirit, 
pervading the universe, yet transcending it, is phi- 
losophically conceivable, but the idea is not easily 
comprehended by the average mind. Between the 
absolute and the limited impassable barriers seem 
to arise. How is it possible to cross these barriers ? 

This leads to the philosophical basis of the 
Christian doctrine of the Trinity. This TheDoc- 

^ . , ^ , trine of the 

doctrme is popularly supposed to be pe- Trinity. 
culiarly a scriptural doctrine. It is mentioned in 
the Scriptures, but only in fragmentary ways, as 
something taken for granted, as is all their teach- 
ing about God. Neither its formation nor its ex- 
planation is found in the Scriptures, but entirely 
in the sphere of philosophy. The terms Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost are equally applied to God, 
but the Biblical writers do not attempt to har- 
monize the apparent contradiction. When we turn 
from the Scriptures to that other and larger reve- 
lation which we call the universe, and again to that 
other one written in the constitution of the human 



38 THE AGE OF FAITH 

soul, we find an answer to our question. Begin- 
ning with intellect, feeling, will in man, we find 
that they quickly disappear in the infinite. The 
infinite spirit transcends human thought and imagi- 
nation. We talk about the infinite, but do not 
know the meaning of the word ; we speak of God, 
but do not know the language which we are using. 
Those words stand for the measureless and the 
everlasting. We turn our eyes again to ourselves 
and to human relations. We love, and, in propor- 
tion to the quality of our being, we desire to make 
our love known and helpful to others like ourselves. 
The best father is most anxious that his son should 
appreciate his love. If, now, the infinite Spirit 
is perfect love. He must desire to make Himself 
known to those who, even in the dimmest way, long 
for Him. The perfect love must respond to the 
limited longing of humanity, or it cannot be per- 
fect. Therefore we conclude that as the infinite 
Spirit is perfect. He does not exist in the solitary 
contemplation of His own perfection, but He re- 
veals Himself to those who can appreciate a little 
of that perfection. That conclusion follows from 
the perfection of God. The Christian doctrine of 
the Trinity is simply the expression of the inevitable 
conclusion that the Absolute and the Perfect must 
make Himself known. The Logos doctrine, or the 
doctrine of the Son, is the belief that God eter- 



THE COXCEPTION OF GOD 39 

nally manifests Himself. He not only exists, but 
He exists in self-revelation. The Absolute, God 
beyond our power to grasp or understand, we call 
Father ; and it is a rare tribute to humanity that 
it instinctively accepts that great and blessed name 
as belono^ino: to the Unseen and the All. What 
lies behind the name ? infinite and abysmal Father- 
hood. Fatherhood must make itself known. That 
tendency to revelation in the divine nature we call 
the Son. The Son is God revealing Himself. 
Consequently all references in the New Testament 
to the universe are associated with the Son ; the 
creation is ascribed to Him ; the power of holding 
the worlds together is ascribed to Him ; all revela- 
tions of power and love are associated with Him. 
The scientist, who learns something of God from 
the stars or the rocks, studies the self-revelation of 
God which we call the Son as certainly as the theo- 
logian, who approaches the same self -revelation of 
God w^hich in its human form is in Jesus Christ. 
The philosophical basis for this truth is this axiom : 
perfect love must manifest itseK. The manifesta- 
tion, God revealing Himself, in theological language 
is called the Logos, or the Son. 

But we have not gone thus far without meeting 
another fact, namely, revelation is not all by means 
of outward vehicles; not all in burning sun and 
flaming stars; through human voice and written 



40 THE AGE OF FAITH 

word. One man reveals himself to another by the 
touch of his spirit. It is impossible to explain this 
beautiful mystery. It is something more than ex- 
ample — spirit speaks to spirit in humanity with- 
out physical media ; and spirit speaks to spirit in 
the relation between the finite and the infinite. 
In the silences you have had visions which were 
not caused by your environment ; suggestions ap- 
parently from those who no longer live in the 
flesh ; thoughts which have reached far beyond this 
earthly life. Where did they come from ? That 
aspiration for holiness is not connected with food 
or drink, with persons who have been seen, with 
words which have been heard. It came silently 
as light and invisibly as dew. In other words, 
the limited human spirit feels the touch of the 
unlimited and infinite Spirit. And that must 
ever be. If there is a perfect Spirit, and our 
limited and imperfect spirits long for companion- 
ship, then according to our imperfection and His 
perfection will His nature tend to manifest Him- 
self to us and to hold fellowship with us. And so 
we have the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit 
— which means that God, the Spirit, has relations 
with human spirits otherwise than by His revela- 
tions in the universe, or by any word which was 
spoken, or any act which was performed by Jesus 
Christ, or by any other man who ever lived. The 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 41 

doctrine of the Trinity finds its justification in the 
constitution of man and the universe. The infinite 
spirit can never be comprehended, but He can 
make Himself known. The uncomprehended is 
God the Father ; the same Being eternally mani- 
festing Himself in nature, in history, in Jesus 
Christ, is God the Son ; the same Being touching 
your spirit and mine with aspiration, longing, deep 
desire, and possibly with real revelation of some- 
thing before unknown, is God the Holy Spirit. 
But, you ask, how can you prove this doctrine? 
It cannot be proved ; it is a spontaneous belief. 

Spontaneous beliefs have the force of Divine re- 
velations. They need no proof, although they can 
be verified, and it is the office of reason to verify 
them while it can neither prove nor disprove them. 

Thus we are led to our conclusion. Spirit in 
God and in man means exactly the same, spirit Every- 
only in one it is unlimited and perfect, 
and in the other limited and imperfect. Intelli- 
gence in God and in man means exactly the same, 
only in one it is unlimited and in the other limited. 
Love in God means the same as it does in man 
with the same qualification. In the love of a child 
for his mother, or of a mother for her child, there 
is manifested something of God. When a man 
and woman in pure love give themselves to each 
other, in that human love is manifested something 



42 THE AGE OF FAITH 

of God. God is pure human love multiplied by 
iofinity and eternity. Rising along these lines we 
find that at last they compass the whole universe, 
and we dimly discern not only behind this world and 
this planetary system, but behind all planetary 
systems, and all groups and constellations of worlds, 
and controlling all, the Spirit that pervades all and 
yet transcends all. That Spirit possesses intel- 
ligence, will, and love, exactly such as we know in 
ourselves, but they are related to such qualities 
in man as the dewdrop is to the ocean, or a single 
breath to the universal atmosphere. The dewdrop 
can never encompass the ocean ; one ray of light can 
never swallow up the splendor of the sun ; and 
the spirit in man can never fully comprehend the 
Spirit which we call God. But making Himself 
known in self -revelation, and coming into personal 
contact with our spirits, is the Being whom we wor- 
ship, and whom Christians delight to glorify as 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

There is a practical side to this subject which 
Divine im- ^^^ hardly be exaggerated. The most 

manence. • i •! j_* j* ji i j_ 

conspicuous contribution oi theology to 
the life of our time is the new emphasis which it 
has placed on the Divine immanence. Immanence 
means that God pervades the universe as the spirit 
pervades the body, so that He is manifested in every 
part, though not identical with any part. He uses 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 43 

the universe as the spirit uses the body. He is in- 
dependent of the universe and transcends it as the 
spirit in man is independent of and transcends his 
body. 

This doctrine does not teach us " that every par- 
ticle of dust driven in the wind, every drop of 
spray from the surf dashing on every shore, the 
motion and action of every molecule of matter is 
caused by a direct and distinct volition and exer- 
tion of God. We are rather to suppose that from 
Him energy is continuously flowing into the physical 
system, sustaining it in being, and directing its 
evolution according to its constitution and laws." ^ 
Here again the analogy of the human spirit and 
body helps us, for the will is often the source of 
the energy and vitality by which the body is sus- 
tained and even strengthened. 

Our spirit "not only works through the brain 
and nervous system, but, as a result, pervades the 
entire organism, animating and inspiring it with its 
own ' peculiar difference ; ' so that we recognize a 
man's character in the expression of his eye, the 
tone of his voice, the touch of his hand, his uncon- 
scious and instinctive postures, and gestures, and 
gait. Nor is this ' immanence ' confined to the 
bodily organism. It extends, in what may be 
called a secondary degree, to the inanimate objects 

1 Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, vol. i. p. 83. 



44 THE AGE OF FAITH 

of the external world. For a man imprints his 
spiritual character upon all the things with which 
he deals — his house, his clothes, his furniture, the 
various products of his hand and head. We speak 
of a man's spirit surviving in his works ; the ex- 
pression is no mere metaphor ; for through those 
works, even though dead and gone, he continues 
to influence his fellow men. While we look 
at the pictures of Raphael, or listen to the music 
of Beethoven, or read the poetry of Dante or 
the philosophy of Plato, the spirits of the great 
masters affects us as really as if we saw them face 
to face : they are immanent in the painted canvas 
and the printed page. Spirit, then, as we know 
it in our own personal experience, has two dif- 
ferent relations to matter, that of transcendence, 
and that of immanence. But though logically dis- 
tinct, these two relations are not actually separate : 
they are two aspects of one fact ; two points of 
view from which the single action of our one per- 
sonality may be regarded. As self-conscious, self- 
identical, self-determined, we possess qualities which 
transcend or rise above the laws of matter ; but 
we can only realize these qualities, and so become 
aware of them, by acting in the material world ; 
while conversely, material objects — our bodies and 
our works of art — could never possibly be re- 
garded as expressions of spirit, if spirit were not at 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 45 

the same time recognized as distinct from its me- 
dium of manifestation." ^ 

" If then we are to raise the question, ' What is 
the relation of the supreme Spirit to the material 
universe ? ' this is the analogy upon which we must 
proceed ; for we have no other. We may indeed 
decline the problem as wholly insoluble ; but if we 
attempt its solution at all, it must of necessity be 
upon the lines of the only experience which we 
possess — this experience in which transcendence 
and immanence are combined." ^ 

This truth of the immanence of God is a favorite 
one with the poets. The following are three illus- 
trations : — 

" One Spirit — His who wore the platted thorns with bleeding 
brows — 
Rules universal nature. Not a flower 
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, 
Of His unrivaled pencil. He inspires 
Their balmy odors and imparts their hues, 
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes, 
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands, 
The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth. 
Happy who walks with Him ! whom what he finds 
Of flavor or of scent in fruit or flower, 
Or what he views of beautifid or grand 
In nature, from the broad majestic oak 
To the green blade that tAvinkles in the sun, 
Prompts with remembrance of a present God. 

^ niingworth, Divine Immanence, pp. 80, 81. 
, 2 iiid,^ p. 81, 82. 



46 THE AGE OF FAITH 

His presence, who made all so fair, perceived, 
Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene 
Is dreary, so with him all seasons please." ^ 

" Thou — as represented here to me 
In such conception as my soul allows, — 
Under Thy measureless, my atom width ! — 
Man's mind, what is it but a convex glass 
Wherein are gathered all the scattered points 
Picked out of the immensity of sky. 
To reunite there, be our heaven for earth, 
Our known unknown, our God revealed to man ? " ^ 

" The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hlUs and the plains — 
Are not these, Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns ? 

' ' Is not the Vision He ? tho' He be not that which He seems ? 
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams ? 

" Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb. 
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him ? 

" Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can 
meet — 
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. 

" And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot 
see ; 
But if we could see and hear, this Vision — were it not He ? " ^ 

Cowper was an exponent of the old and some- 
what mechanical theology, but he discovered the 
spiritual significance of nature as distinctly as 
Browning and Tennyson, and all three found God 

^ Cowper, The Task. 

2 Browning, The Ring and the Book. 

^ Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism. 



THE CONCEPTION" OF GOD 47 

in the seas, and " aspectable stars," and in tlie 
soul of man. 

The divine transcendence should ever have the 
first place. It is the basis of veneration, fear, awe, 
and all that stimulates and inspires worship. Men 
never worship a being which they believe to be be- 
neath them. The fetich of the savage symbolizes 
something greater than the worshiper. That is a 
true thought of Dr. Matheson that the primeval 
man worships a stone or a mountain because he 
thinks he has found something unchangeable — 
while he himself is subject to change. God is the 
object of veneration, fear, worship, because He is 
transcendent. But linked with that fact is the divine 
immanence which should never be overlooked, and 
which is the old doctrine of the divine Omnipre- 
sence with a new name. Everything is transfigured 
in the eyes of those who realize that God pervades 
all things ; that in a certain real sense He is in 
every flower and every star, every dewdrop and 
every sun ; in the laughing child, the loving woman, 
the thinking man ; that by Him all things were 
created, and in Him they consist. 

" God's transcendence and immanence being in 
unison, the physical universe is not a dead wall 
separating us from God and hiding Him, but rather 
the screen on which, as in a panorama, we in the 
darkness see Him, from the intense light behind 



48 THE AGE OF FAITH 

the picture, Himself in His cosmic energizing be- 
fore our eyes." ^ 

" Though God extends beyond creation's rim, 
Each smallest atom shows the whole of Him." 

Modern science is demonstrating that an irre- 
movable basis for the real in the universe can be 
found only in the ideal, unchangeable, in a mind 
behind the universe. 

" Forever through the world's material forms 

Heaven shoots the immaterial ; night and day 
Apocalyptic intimations stray 
Across the rifts of matter." 

The influence of this truth is revolutionary, and 
Influence of J^^ bencficent. If God is in humanity, 

oc rme. ^^^qt^ thc old teaching concerning individ- 
ual total depravity should give place to generous 
emphasis upon the fact that in every man is some- 
thing of God, and therefore that all service of 
humanity is service of God. Did not St. John say : 
"He that loveth not his brother whom he hath 
seen cannot love God whom he hath not seen " ? 
And did not our Lord Himself identify the service 
of the criminal, the poor, and the outcast with the 
service of God when He said : " Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren ye have done it unto me " ? This doctrine 
shows that man is not ignoble but essentially 

1 Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, vol. i. p. 88. 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 49 

divine ; that we worship God best when we most 
helpfully serve man ; that there has been a mean- 
ing in all the pains of progress ; that no people have 
ever been without God ; that He must have been 
as near to Pekin as He was to Jerusalem; that 
while one nation was chosen for one mission, other 
nations have been ec^ually chosen for other missions. 
If God is in humanity, the record of progress is 
the ever-growing manifestation of the Deity, and 
all its conflicts and divisions have underneath 
them a vital and abiding unity, which slowly but 
surely will manifest itself. History is not aim- 
less and purposeless, because God is in His world 
working out His own plans. 

Finally, it follows from this doctrine that the 
end of all things must be the triumph of truth 
and right, since God cannot forever be defeated. 
" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and 
that God's Spirit dwelleth in you? " In the same 
way the physical creation is hallowed, because as 
His Spirit dwells in man it also dwells in the uni- 
verse. The outcast woman is a sister of Mary the 
Mother of our Lord ; and the penitent thief finds 
his true home in the Paradise of God. All life, all 
service, all men, all things, the universe itself, are 
included in the divine plan, expressions of the 
divine intelligence, and the fulfillment of a purpose 
of love. 



50 THE AGE OF FAITH 

I conclude this chapter as follows ; by the word 
" God " is meant the perfection of intelligence, 
will, love. They are not abstractions, but united 
in a self-conscious person ; and that person in His 
infinity and eternity is truly though not fully 
made known in the universe, in history, in the 
constitution of man, and in the person of Jesus 
Christ. 



I 



Ill 

GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 

In the childhood of the race the nature of the 
Deity was inferred from the manifestations of 
energy in earth and air. Whatever produced in- 
stant and most intense terror was personified and 
supposed to be the mightiest of beings. Hence the 
first idea of the supreme Power (after that revealed 
through the family) was derived from winds, 
storms, earthquakes ; from the sun, moon, and 
stars ; from day and night, from sea and sky. 
Since the manifestations of force were many, and 
the fact of unity had not yet been discovered, 
belief in many gods naturally followed. They were 
interpreted by the effects which were produced on 
observers by natural phenomena. There were the 
gods of the day and night, of the storm and the sea. 
The idea of unity succeeded, but there was no 
change in the method of interpretation. Nature 
was nearest to man ; nature was vaster than man 
— therefore nature was worshiped, and men were 
awed by her storms and made glad by her splen- 
dors. But nature had many forms and moods, and 



52 THE AGE OF FAITH 

no man could appreciate more than one of tliem at 
a time. Consequently belief in many gods, some 
friendly and some hostile, became common. But 
these many deities were themselves dependent on 
a primal power, called Fate, or by some other 
name. Gradually this method of reasoning gave 
place to another. The evolution of government 
forced itself into prominence, and without any dis- 
tinctly marked period of transition the interpreta- 
tion of the unseen power or powers by the energies 
of the universe was superseded by one derived from 
governmental analogies. Then men began to think 
of the Deity as imaged in the institutions to which 
they were most directly responsible. Thus the uni- 
verse came to be regarded as a huge kingdom or 
empire, of which God was the ruler, a king — 
awful and majestic, as became the monarch of such 
a realm. 

Slowly these theories were supplanted by an- 
other which is the fruit of the scientific investiga- 
tion of later times. A study of the things which 
are certified by the senses leads to the perception 
of unity, not as something demonstrable, but as 
something required by facts. No microscope is 
fine enough to detect a spirit in man or in the uni- 
verse, and yet the presence of something mysterious 
and spiritual is almost universally acknowledged. 
Energy, wisdom, intelligence, are believed to be 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 53 

omnipresent, but how they coexist is not known. 
We feel the pressure of the facts of life and his- 
tory ; we hear the voices that speak in the spaces 
and in the silences, but the message which they 
would communicate is indefinite and indistinct. 
We are told that the universe implies that the 
unknown and unknowable principle of unity is 
the Deity — if there be one. But when we ask, 
Does unity imply personality ? no answer is forth- 
coming. 

Among Christians a new reply is having wide 
acceptance. To trace the genesis of the Herrmann 

.-..^ aii<i Fair- 
school of thought to which 1 refer is dif- bairn. 

ficult and not essential to my object ; but one thing 
is evident — whether liberal or conservative, evan- 
gelical or Ritschlian, it is devotedly Christian. 
Two teachers more clearly than others whom I 
know in our time have given form to this answer 
— Herrmann, of Marburg, and Fairbairn, of 
Oxford. 

Herrmann says : " The person of Jesus is the 
fact by which God communes with us." ^ When 
we know the person of Jesus, we know God, but 
we can know the person of Jesus only as we know 
his inner life. " Jesus becomes a real power to us 
when he reveals his inner life to us." ^ " We, for 
our part, become conscious of God's communion 

* Communion of the Christian with God, p. 56. ^ Ibid., p. 62. 



54 THE AGE OF FAITH 

with us by the fact that the person of Jesus reveals 
itself to us through the power of his inner life." ^ 
" But his (the preacher's) chief aim should be to 
make visible and active that which alone can be 
the basis of faith in himself as well as in others. . . . 
Jesus only, the inner life of this man." ^ Thus 
Herrmann teaches that the only way to become ac- 
quainted with God is to know or realize the inner 
life of Jesus, and the only way to do that is by 
experience. That this is one way of knowing God 
all Christian thinkers will readily grant, but that 
it is the only one, or either the simplest or most 
elemental, I cannot acknowledge. God has spoken 
through many voices, and the revelation which 
began when Jesus was born was not the first, nor 
will it be the last. " The heavens declare the glory 
of God." 

" The interpretation of God in the terms of the 
consciousness of Christ may thus be described as 
the distinctive and differentiating doctrine of the 
Christian religion." ^ The answers of Herrmann 
and Fairbairn are essentially the same ; to know 
the nature of God one must know the inner life, or 
the consciousness, of Christ. But that is not easy. 
To know the inner life — to see into the conscious- 
ness — of any man is no simple task ; thus to pene- 

1 Communion of the Christian with God, p. 65. ^ J5{ J,^ p. 68. 
^ Fairbairn's Place of Christ in Modern Theology^ p. 388. 



GOD — INTERPKETED BY FATHERHOOD 55 

trate into the " inner life " of Jesus Christ, whom 
none now living ever saw, is a process, to say the 
least, exceedingly difficult. It would require care- 
ful definition and explanation. Who could know 
whether he was experiencing the inner life of the 
Christ without first knowing that life? And yet, 
to know it, we are told, requires experience. Thus 
we are started on a fatal circle of inquiry. Again, 
how are we to interpret in the terms of the con- 
sciousness of Christ ? How may the possession of 
that consciousness be verified except by that con- 
sciousness itself ? While they are not satisfactory, 
these answers contain much truth. He who has 
entered into the consciousness of Christ does know 
God, but as a means of interpreting the divine 
nature this teaching is altogether inadequate. How 
should the subject be approached? Is not the 
answer of the Bible sufficient ? Yes, when it is 
understood, but there is wide difference of opin- 
ion as to what the Bible really teaches. More- 
over, with those who do not recognize the authority 
of the Christian Scriptures this reply would have- 
no force. The Scriptures throw light on the sub- 
ject ; but they also must be interpreted. 

All forms of idealism have answers to our ques- 
tion, but there is no means of testing their accuracy 
except by what is resident in the mind that spec- 
ulates. The harmony between the imagination 



56 THE AGE OF FAITH 

and its own product is the only standard of mea- 
surement which pure idealism possesses. 

Another method of arriving at an answer to our 
inquiry as to the nature of the Deity is 

The Indue- u J J 

tive Method, ^jjg inductivc. From a study of the seen 
we rise to the unseen. From what the world and 
man are, we infer what God is. But does not this 
reasoning lead to confusion? Are not the pro- 
cesses of history and the forces and activities of 
the universe double-faced ? The light speaks of 
love ; the darkness of gloom. The landscape, 
with its flowers and the songs of birds, suggests 
one kind of a being ; storms, tidal waves, and 
earthquakes, with their wake of destruction and 
death, suggest an altogether different being. The 
European would have one conception of God, 
the African another. Environment modifies the 
mental concepts as well as the physical features. 
There is only one way to escape the force of this 
reasoning. We must find that which is most 
elemental in the life of man, and in it seek an 
answer to our inquiry concerning the nature of 
God. In order of time the first human relation, 
and the one which makes itself felt to the intelli- 
gence before anything else, is parenthood. Before a 
child thinks of storms or sunset splendors he looks 
into the depths of loving eyes ; before he dreads 
clouds and darkness he shrinks from a frown on 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 57 

his parent's face. The first and most elemental of 
relationships, the nearest and most influential of 
all factors in the human environment, is covered 
by the word fatherhood, which really contains all 
that is signified by the word parenthood. From 
it are learned the earliest lessons of dependence, 
authority, responsibility, ministry. In short, all 
the God that a little child knows is embodied in 
his parents, and the larger vision of his later years 
is but the growth and expansion of what is made 
known through them. Every one has a real, though 
perhaps dim, understanding of what fatherhood 
means. It is not only the primary, it is also the 
most universal of human conceptions of the 
higher powers. Those who have experienced the 
inner life of Christ surely know God, but that 
experience is complex and not easily interpreted. 
Is there no natural way to reach that knowledge 
for those who have not had such an experience ? 
Our answer is this : the vehicle by which the 
first intimations of the Deity are conveyed, if it 
is universal, must always be trustworthy. Those 
earliest intimations come through parenthood ; 
therefore its voice is the most authoritative con- 
cerning the nature of God. Whatever that na- 
ture is, it is made known by fatherhood in propor- 
tion as it approaches what is commonly regarded 
as its ideal form. What reveals God once must 



58 THE AGE OF FAITH 

always do so, although the contents of the reve- 
lation may broaden and deepen with years and 
experience. Thus we are prepared by what we 
know of man to find the holiest of human relations 
used as the medium of the most authoritative 
divine revelation. Instead, therefore, of saying 
that the nature of the Deity is disclosed only in 
the experience of the inner life of the historic 
Christ, I should say that it is always and every- 
where revealed in fatherhood, and that the revela- 
tion approaches perfection in proportion as the 
father is worthy of the sacred name which he 
bears. Because the first idea of God always comes 
through the parent, we infer that ideal fatherhood 
is always a true revelation of the divine. Herr- 
mann says, to know God, one must experience the 
inner life of Christ. But only a few do that — 
and men must know something of what God is 
before they can be expected either to fear or love 
him. All men through fatherhood receive their 
first lessons concerning God. Therefore, we say : 
in what your own heart tells you every father was 
intended to be multiplied by infinity, behold as 
clear a manifestation of the contents of the word 
God as can be conveyed to man. 

But let us now inquire what is implied by father- 
hood. The first thought is clearly that of identity 
of nature between two beings. The child and his 



Contents of 
Fatherhood. 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 59 

parent are two personalities, and yet, what the 
father is the child is. The second inher- 
its the peculiarities, the temperament, the 
characteristics, the tendencies, of the one from 
whom his being is derived. There is a vital con- 
nection between them. They are of the same 
substance and have the same nature, and yet they 
are two. The branch is not the vine, and yet it is 
the extension of the vine. The parental relation, 
when used to interpret God, necessitates the infer- 
ence that man is of the very nature or substance 
of the Deity, and yet that he is not Deity — as I 
am of the nature of my father, but am not my 
father. Identity of nature between parent and 
child is essential to the idea of fatherhood. 

Mutual responsibility is also a part of the con- 
tent of the revelation of fatherhood. By Mutual Re- 
a kind of instinct the child feels his de- ^^^^^ ^ ^ ^' 
pendence and his responsibility. No formal rules 
compel a child to bow to the will of the parent ; 
to do so is as natural and instinctive as for him to 
breathe. The feeling of responsibility in the child 
is manifest from the dawn of consciousness. Later 
we begin to understand that our parents are as 
truly responsible jfor us as that we are responsible 
to them. They determined our birth ; in large 
part they made the environment into which we 
were born ; in a certain real sense they are our 



60 THE AGE OF FAITH 

creators. But for them we would never have been. 
Therefore they have duties to us which are evident, 
and which usually are joyfully acknowledged and 
assumed. We render to them loyal obedience — they 
give to us loving service ; and no fidelity on the one 
side can in the least discharge the obligation which 
belongs to the other side. The child and the parent 
have mutual responsibilities. The same is true in 
the higher relation between man and the unseen 
power whom we call God. On the one hand wor- 
ship and obedience are as instinctive as breathing 
and eating, and the obligation to obey is universal 
and apparently ineradicable. On the other hand, 
with the growth of years, the conviction is devel- 
oped that he who allowed us to exist, who deter- 
mined our heritage and our associations, has him- 
self an obligation to us as real as ours to him. By 
every consideration of righteousness and justice, 
he is bound to seek to make existence for his 
creatures a blessing and not a curse. 

Every child in every true home is born into an 
atmosphere of love. This is so much a matter of 
course that at first it is hardly appreciated. Child- 
hood is the manifestation of love. A little child 
is at once the simplest and the prof oundest example 
of what love requires and what it inspires. Even 
before reason is able to make an inference, love 
begins its unconscious ministries, and it never 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 61 

ceases ; for even when death separates bodies, 
memory binds spirits in bonds which are deathless. 
Love also is mutual. *' We love him because he 
first loved us," is forever true. The parent pours 
his heart-wealth around his child ; the child, almost 
before consciousness dawns, begins to return love 
for love. Thus the divinest fact of which we 
know is forever coming into new forms of mani- 
festation. Fatherhood thrills with love ; child- 
hood responds to the appeal of love with love. 
And so the eternal poem is being written in terms 
of life, and loses none of its music as the years go 
by. To a child the divinest being known is his 
father, who shares his nature, yet who is above 
him. When we first approach the Unseen on whom 
we feel ourselves dependent, it is natural and inevi- 
table to believe him to be like the one on whom 
we evidently depend, and to whom we already feel 
that we are responsible ; and that reasoning leads 
straight to fatherhood, and therefore to love, which 
is without limit or bound and immortal. 

Thus a study of the most nearly universal and 
elemental of human relations justifies the conviction 
that all men are of the same substance as the One 
who gave them being ; that they are responsible to 
Him and He to them ; that He loves as naturally 
as the sun shines, and wins love as naturally as 
the gardens respond to the light. 



62 THE AGE OF FAITH 

Does the conclusion we have now reached har- 
The Teach- monizc with the teaching of Scripture ? 

ing of the . x i -vt 

Scriptures. The harmouy is complete. In the JNew 
Testament the name Father is applied to Deity 
(chiefly by Jesus) 256 times. No other name has 
such frequent use. The only other often men- 
tioned is God, and that on the lips of Jesus is 
usually associated with Father. In the Sermon on 
the Mount, as recorded by Matthew, " Father" 
appears seventeen times, and with almost equal 
frequency in other parts of the Gospel. In Mark 
the name appears four times. In the Gospel ac- 
cording to Luke, again the word is often used; 
while it shines from every page of the Gospel ac- 
cording to John. In the Acts and the Epistles 
" Father " does not so frequently appear. The 
very thought of God in the writings of Paul was 
overshadowed by his immense enthusiasm for 
Christ. He is so possessed by Christ that he 
seldom attempts to interpret God in any other 
term, but when the word Father is used by him, 
it is in a peculiarly emphatic sense. In Rom. xv. 
6, he speaks of " the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; " in 1 Cor. viii. 6, in a significant passage, 
he uses the word as a term of definition, " One 
God, the Father ; " in 2 Cor. i. 3, he writes " the 
Father of mercies ; " in Eph. i. 17, " the Father of 
glory;" iv. 6, "God and Father;" v. 20, "God, 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 63 

even the Father." The salutations in the Pauline 
epistles all refer to "Father," and the reference 
in those instances surely is general. In the 
membership of the early churches were many who 
could be called Christians only by courtesy, like 
the incestuous man at Corinth ; but they were all 
included in the salutation. In the Epistle to the 
Hebrews there are but two references to the 
" Father," and the Epistle of James contains the 
word but twice. Peter uses it four times, and 
always in a general sense. When once more the 
writings of John are reached, the name emerges as 
prominent as before. In the Epistles of John, 
" Father " has no limited meaning as if intended 
to apply only to a few. It is as wide as humanity. 
In 1 John ii. 1, we read of the " Advocate with 
the Father." Advocate may be the possession of 
those who believe, but Father is a universal name. 
In the Revelation the word appears ^ve times. 

A comparative study of the preceding refer- 
ences is instructive. Father is almost the only 
word used by Jesus when speaking of the Deity ; 
it is almost the only word found in those books 
which contain an account of his life and teachings. 
Its use is equally frequent and characteristic by 
the apostle who was nearest to him and who best 
knew his mind. In the books most Christian it is 
found most frequently, while in those most colored 



64 THE AGE OF FAITH 

by Judaism it seldom appears. James was the 
Jew among the New Testament writers, and in his 
letter the name is found but twice. The Gospel 
according to John is peculiarly the Gospel of 
Fatherhood. That was written latest of all the 
books of the New Testament ; and if John knew 
much of the writings of the other apostles, it is 
not an unwarranted inference that his peculiar 
and reiterated emphasis may have been intentional, 
in view of the fact that fatherhood did not have 
the place to which it was entitled in what may 
be called the Judaic epistles. Whether this hy- 
pothesis be correct or not, the fact that the idea 
and name of Father dominate all the Gospels, and 
the Epistles of John, is beyond question. 

But we are met with the assertion that, while 
Is God Fa- the name Father is often applied to the 
uevers only? Deity, hc is represented in the New Testa- 
ment as the Father of believers only. This may 
be answered in two ways. The essence of father- 
hood is the giving of life. If all men owe their 
being to God, then he is their Father, and has 
upon him the responsibilities of fatherhood. But 
a careful examination of the circumstances attend- 
ing the use of the word Father shows that it will 
allow no such narrow interpretation. The Sermon 
on the Mount may have been addressed to the dis- 
ciples only, or to the multitude — that matters 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 65 

little. The disciples were not good enough at that 
time to be the especial favorites of the Almighty. 
There were quite as choice spirits outside that 
band as within it. James and John, who, even 
under the shadow of the cross, were to seek the 
rich offices in the kingdom ; Peter, who was to 
deny him; and Judas, who was to betray him, 
were all alike taught to praj^, "Our Father, which 
art in heaven." The nearest definition of God to 
which Paul ever came was, " One God, the Fa- 
ther." Because a Christian to-day speaks of " the 
Father," or " our Father," it does not follow that 
he means to be understood that he is the Father of 
Christians alone ; and when the New Testament 
writers use the word, it has the largest meaning. 
It is not surprising that the Epistles are less clear 
at this point than the Gospels, for the former tell 
us concerning him of whom the Apostles thought 
most, namely, the Master, Christ ; while the Gos- 
pels tell us of whom Jesus thought and talked 
most, namely, God the Father. 

But the frequency with which the word Father 
appears is not so significant as the relations in 
which it appears. In the only form in which the 
doctrine of the Trinity has any expression, Father 
always has the first place ; baptism was always 
to be first in the name of the Father ; when 
Jesus taught men to pray, it was to the Father ; 



66 THE AGE OF FAITH 

when he taught the doctrine of Providence, he 
said, " Your heavenly Father feedeth them ; " 
when he taught the nature of God in the parable 
of the Prodigal Son, he showed the Father in an 
act of forgiveness; when he unrolled the pano- 
rama of the judgment, he showed the Father in 
the midst of its terrors; when he first declared 
himself the Messiah, he spoke of the Father to a 
Samaritan woman three times ; the promise is that 
the Comforter shall come from the Father ; the Ad- 
vocate is with the Father ; death is robbed of its 
sting when Jesus says, " In my Father's house are 
many mansions ; " and Paul declares that when 
Christ at last shall give up his kingdom it will be 
into the Father's hands. Thus nearly all, if not 
all, the teaching in the New Testament which is 
most vital and fundamental is stated in terms of 
fatherhood. The reason for this is not far to find. 
The words " king " and " emperor " had horrible 
and cruel associations. The former suggested 
Herod, and the latter Caesar, and both were hateful. 
The word God is meaningless ; it suggests the in- 
finite and everlasting, the nebulous and awful, but 
sheds no light on essential being. Jesus might 
have used any other word as well as God, for it 
only points toward the unknown. But the mean- 
ing of Father all understood then, and will forever 
understand. Its significance is as rich and evident 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 67 

to the peasant as to the philosopher. No other 
name at once so accurate and so easily compre- 
hended, so simple and yet so profoundly significant, 
could have been selected. If we may so speak, it 
is the natural and elemental name for the Deity. 
It is not easily misinterpreted when the human 
relationship even remotely suggests its ideal signi- 
ficance. 

When fatherhood is associated with the Deity it 
fittingly assumes the phrase of the Apostles' Creed, 
" God, the Father Almighty." Then it is no com- 
mon or small word. It expresses more than senti- 
ment. In its most limited meaning it implies the 
austere as well as the tender, the just as well as 
the loving. In this its largest use these qualities 
of being are expanded to infinity. At the heart of 
the universe, transcending it and yet pervading it, 
directing the affairs of men and equally the sweep 
of the constellations, the governing principle of 
human history and also of the cosmic energies in 
all the ages, is the essence of fatherhood, infinite, 
all-embracing, everlasting — this is the truth bound 
up in that phrase, " the Father Almighty." 

The ideal fatherhood necessitates holiness. When 
Jesus said, " Be ye perfect, as your Fa- implies 
ther which is in heaven is perfect," he weiiasLove. 
asserted the absolute holiness of the Father. Holi- 
ness is as essential to fatherhood as is love. A 



68 THE AGE OF FAITH 

true father is as anxious to save his child from 
being wrong as from suffering. Justice and love 
are only opposite sides of the same attribute ; 
they cannot be separated. Wrong and error put 
as heavy a burden on fatherhood as do sorrow 
and pain. An earthly father will not long allow 
in his household anything which is evil or unjust ; 
if it is tolerated at all, it is only in order that it 
may be so removed as to cause the least friction ; 
but it must go, and as soon as is consistent with 
all the interests which should be conserved. How- 
ever its existence may be accounted for, the Al- 
mighty Father, because of His holiness, can permit 
sin and suffering only so long as may be necessary 
to accomplish the best purposes for the universe. 
As to when those purposes will be achieved, and 
by what methods holiness will be victorious, we 
may speculate, but with our present vision we may 
not know. The central and controlling motive in 
fatherhood is love — and love in proportion to its 
perfection is mixed with holiness. Fatherhood is 
always ethical as well as emotional. Omnipo- 
tence, holiness, love, are three words which are 
bound together in any adequate description of the 
Heavenly Father. 

The full content and significance of the Divine 
Fatherhood can be but dimly comprehended. Such 
knowledge is too wonderful for us. " ]^ow we see 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 60 

through a glass darkly." But this truth points to- 
ward an interpretation of the life of the individual, 
of the universe, of history, which is of inconceivable 
glory. It implies perfect holiness and perfect love 
in the hands of Omnipotence. The Father is the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Therefore all 
the ages and all the events of the past have been 
directed by love toward holiness ; therefore no 
creature has ever been outside the reach of His 
love or the sweep of His holiness; therefore not 
only this world, but all worlds have been adminis- 
tered by love in the interests of holiness; there- 
fore the one far-off divine event must be the sway 
of holiness in every creature and in every part of 
the universe. 

But many objections are raised against these 
conclusions. All that has been said is 

Objections. 

acknowledged to be true, but it is claimed 
that the induction is incomplete. We are reminded 
that if the contents of fatherhood are to be learned 
from the human relationship, the fact can hardly 
be evaded that in the majority of homes father- 
hood is not associated with holiness, and implies 
instinctive rather than intelligent and rational love. 
That is true. In humanity fatherhood is perhaps 
quite as often an accident as the result of choice. 
How can such grim facts be evaded? and, much 
more, how can they be explained ? Moreover, there 



70 THE AGE OF FAITH 

is another side to nature and history than the one 
thus far presented. Even if love and justice do 
dominate the household, by what fiction can they 
be said to rule in society ? The state punishes the 
weak and unfortunate as if they were responsible 
for the acts for which they suffer. What element 
of justice is exhibited when a poor, frail woman 
who, in a fit of shame and desperation, has 
smothered a new-born child, is brought to punish- 
ment for what she would never have done if she 
had been in the circumstances of those who pass 
judgment ? The violence in nature ; the calamities 
which destroy thousands of lives in a moment ; the 
pestilence, and, perhaps most of all, the principle 
of murder, by which man and beast alike are " red 
in tooth and claw," — how can these incontestable 
and terrible realities be reconciled with fatherhood 
at the heart of things ? I do not at this time at- 
tempt to answer these questions, but I do not 
ignore them. They cannot be evaded ; but whether 
they may be adequately answered is an altogether 
different question. This much at least may be said 
at this time : neglect, cruelty, accidental father- 
hood are not essential and elemental in the idea of 
fatherhood. Among the most barbaric peoples are 
rudiments of holiness and love which, if they have 
opportunity, always grow and become sovereign. 
Even where these qualities are not found, they 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 71 

are recognized as essential to the true concep- 
tion of fatherhood. Ideals alone are prophetic of 
what ouo'ht to be and will be. The ideals of sav- 
ages are often right when knowledge and ability 
to realize them are defective. 

A study of civilized and also of the less perfectly 
developed races shows that even among them, be- 
fore natural phenomena inspire awe and worship, 
the sanctity of fatherhood is felt ; that it is the 
nearest, the most elemental, and the most constant 
factor in the life of the child ; that from it the first 
ideas of Deity are derived ; that parent and child 
have the same nature, although they are not 
identically the same beings, and that the feeling 
of dependence and responsibility on the part of 
the child is quickly followed by one of obligation 
on the part of the parent, because he is the author 
of the existence of his child. We conclude there- 
fore that men and God are the same in substance, 
though not identical as individuals ; that they 
have reciprocal obligations — the one of obedi- 
ence, and the other of service. So much results 
from a study of fatherhood in human life. These 
conclusions harmonize with the teaching of Jesus. 
Almost the only name he ever used when speaking 
of God was Father. Fatherhood, when applied 
to God, must signify the same that it does in 
human relations, or the word is meaningless. But 



72 THE AGE OF FAITH 

while it signifies the same in both spheres, in the 
former its contents are multiplied by the distance 
between the finite and imperfect and the infinite 
and perfect. The perfect being must be perfectly 
holy and loving. In the ideal human fatherhood 
we have the clearest conception of Deity which 
it is possible for man to understand. As we better 
appreciate the prophecies of our own nature, we 
shall have a worthier appreciation of the grandeur 
and compassion, the holiness and love, of Him 
whose perfection may be forever approached, but 
never can be fully comprehended. It is easier 
and safer to try to understand the meaning and 
prophecy of fatherhood than to seek to experience 
the inner life of Jesus. The key which he used to 
unlock the most majestic of mysteries is the one 
which he would have his followers use. 

My conclusion, then, is as follows : We may 
know God in his essential nature — what 

Conclusion. , ■% i> i xx • 

He is apart from the fact that He is — 
by a realization of the significance of the relation 
between parent and child. This knowledge is 
within the reach of all, since all are children or 
parents, or both. The nearest and most elemental 
relation in humanity may be trusted when through 
it come revelations of the nature of Deity. This 
is the Christian method of investigation, because 
it was the one followed and sanctioned by the 



GOD — INTERPRETED BY FATHERHOOD 73 

Christ. His message harmonizes with the results 
of a stud}'' of human life, and both emphasize what 
I believe should be the governing principle in all 
theology — Interpret God by fatherhood. 



IV 

THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 

Pessimism and Optimism are quite as much 
results of temperament as of study or observation. 
The bilious and dyspeptic are almost always pes- 
simists ; while those physically well are as fre- 
quently optimists. But the questions of pessimism 
and optimism cannot be answered by any physio- 
logical experiments. They would never have 
grown into philosophical systems and become the 
distinguishing characteristics of religions, with 
millions of believers, if there were not something 
which seemed to give them a basis in reason. 
Whatever theory commands wide acceptance has 
existence because it is apparently reasonable. 
Individuals may be willing to believe lies, but 
masses of men never are. They may be deceived 
for a time, but they need only light to prefer truth 
to error. Pessimism and optimism represent two 
opposite ways of interpreting human life and the 
universe. The reasons for these diverse interpre- 
tations are many and some of them obscure. 

Pessimists are of many classes. Some think 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 75 

only of themselves ; and others from their per- 
sonal dissatisfaction conclude that there 

Pessimism. 

is no good anywhere, and, consequently, 
that there has been nothing desirable in the past, 
and can be nothing worth anticipation in the 
future. Schopenhauer held that the universe it- 
self is utterly bad — not that it has been good 
and that the harmony is now broken, but that in 
its very essence it is evil and only evil. The old 
theologians used to teach that this is the best pos- 
sible moral system ; he held that there is no moral 
system, and that everything is utterly and irre- 
trievably miserable. Von Hartman was equally 
pessimistic in his outlook, but he was willing to 
allow that the universe was the best possible — but 
that was saying nothing, since the best was in- 
conceivably bad. Such theories imply not only 
wretchedness in the mass, but also in all individu- 
als. No life is worth living on the earth, and 
there is no hope of anything better beyond. The 
processes of history show few signs of intelligence, 
and still fewer of love. The universe is without 
meaning and without promise. Men are only like 
feathers blown on winds which come, no one knows 
whence, and go, none can tell whither. Byron 
has put into doleful music the creed of Pessi- 
mism : — 



76 THE AGE OF FAITH 

" Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
Count o'er thy days from ang-uish free, 
And know, whatever thou hast been, 
'T is something better not to be." ^ 

Optimism is the exact reverse of pessimism. It 
holds that life itself is a blessing, and that 

Optimism. , 

it moves toward larger horizons in the years 
to come. It does not shut its eyes to sorrow, suf- 
fering, and the apparent defeat of truth and right ; 
it sees clearly the mistakes and sins, and the wide- 
spread desolations which have been wrought by 
them, but it believes that the moral order is organ- 
ized for blessing ; that no individual is allowed to 
suffer without that suffering being made a possibil- 
ity of benefit ; that the ills which men endure have 
relations to larger ends some time to be realized, 
and therefore that even the bitterest experiences, 
and the processes leading to those experiences 
which seem so needlessly harsh, are justified by 
the results sure to be achieved. To the pessimist 
the creation is an infinite complexity of blind, re- 
sistless and remorseless forces which grind the rich 
and the poor alike, without haste and without rest. 
To the optimist it is the embodiment of the ab- 
solute reason and love ; the nature of things is 
beneficent ; human hearts are not ground like grist 
in infinite mills ; but every pang of suffering and 

^ Byron, Euthanasia. 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 77 

every sigh of sorrow are means by which per- 
fect love accomplishes benefit for the individual, 
the race, and the whole created universe. 

There is a great gulf fixed between these two 
theories. While they are in part the result of 
temperamental conditions, something far more 
radical must be sought as the cause of their diver- 
gence. 

Before turning to that, it will be well to seek to 
understand on what grounds pessimism HowPessi- 
justifies itself to the reason. The grounds fies itseif. 
are three, namely, the testimony of those who have 
found existence a failure, personal experience, and 
observation. The pessimists — and their number 
is legion — insist that suffering and sorrow are 
universal, and balanced by no compensations. 
They attempt to prove this by the testimony of 
those who have lived in different lands, and who 
have been separated by centuries. Their motto 
is the words which Homer puts into the mouth 
of Zeus : — 

" The race of mortal men, 
Of all that breathe and move upon the earth, 
Is the most wretched." ^ 

Their favorite poets are Omar Khayyam, Byron, 
and Goethe. As to certain phases of experience 
these writers may be competent witnesses, but their 

1 The Iliad, hodkVl. 



78 THE AGE OF FAITH 

testimony is of no value concerning life in its larger 
relations. Of all the dreary platitudes which a 
dissolute man ever mustered energy to write, the 
" Rubaiyat " of Omar Khayyam is the dreariest, 
the most senseless, and the most debasing. " It is 
remarkable that pessimistic sentiments abound in 
voluptuous poets." ^ The reason for this is that 
their thought is centred on the gratification of 
sensual desires. The pleasure which they seek 
quickly passes and leaves enervation and lassitude 
behind. This is the soil in which dark thoughts 
take root and grow. Of all the poets of pessimism 
only Goethe had a knowledge of life large enough 
to make him a trustworthy witness, and his know- 
ledge was more than balanced by his moral ob- 
liquity, which was all the worse because against 
light. 

Some writers in all ages have seen only the dark 
side of things, but, with the possible exception of 
Goethe, they have never been in the highest rank. 
Omar, Byron, Goethe, find little in the human ex- 
perience but sickness, suffering, foulness, and the 
ruin of virtue by vice. There is a school of novel- 
ists also, of which, perhaps, George Eliot is the 
most illustrious example, which sees in life only 
malign forces working out malignant purposes. 
But men of supreme vision have never been pessi- 

^ Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, vol. i. p. 251. 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 79 

mists, unless Buddha be excepted, — and of his 
personal teachings little is known. Homer was 
not a pessimist, or we should never have had the 
triumph of virtue in The Odyssey, and the crime 
of Paris worthily punished as in The Iliad. Dante 
saw written over the entrance to hell, " All hope 
abandon, ye who enter here ; " but beyond the 
Inferno he found the Paradiso, and as the crown 
and glory of humanity, " the perfected will," — 
a peace attainable by all. 

Milton was not content until he had written the 
Paradise Regained. There is more for all than 
a Paradise Lost. Browning and Tennyson, the 
two sublimest singers of the century and among 
the noblest of all time, both believed that — 

" 'T is better to have loved and lost, 
Than never to have loved at all." 

" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die " 
is the note to which pessimism is keyed. Many 
voices bewail the miseries of existence, and many 
eyes can see nothing before them but the grave ; 
but those voices have a hollow sound, and under 
the eyes are the deep dark circles which distinguish 
the voluptuary. 

There is testimony that favors pessimism, but it 
is partial, and represents neither the best thought 
nor the purest morality. 



80 THE AGE OF FAITH 

But the pessimist makes reply : " We are not 
dependent for proof on the testimony of others ; 
we see and know the facts, and they cannot be 
gainsaid. We have felt the fire in our own bodies. 
Sorrows exceed joys a thousand-fold." Here we 
touch those who have suffered deeply, and whose 
physical and mental agony can neither be ex- 
plained away nor greatly minimized. " Moreover 
turn your eyes outward and survey the world. 
Think of the pain of the brute creation, with its 
awful dumb misery ; think of the disappointment, 
the sickness, the physical suffering, the mental 
anguish, the loneliness, the heart ache and the 
heart breaking which fill the existence of man; 
and then say, if you can, that there is anywhere a 
prophecy of better things. Think of the millions 
even now imperfectly developed ! Think of the 
sickness and the suffering that so greatly abound ! 
Think of the miseries of childhood ! Listen to 
the * Cry of the Children ' and the ' Cry of the 
Human,' and then answer. Is the joy of life equal 
to the sorrow and suffering ? But even if it were 
not, it could be endured if there were any prospect 
of relief in the future ; but the future must be 
judged by the past and the present. There is little 
which prophesies blessing in any of the experiences 
of humanity. The race may slowly improve, but 
the processes of evolution, like infinite Juggernaut- 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 81 

wheels, grind beneath them the hopes and loves of 
millions of individuals who go down in order that 
the mass may be perfected." 

This reasoning of the pessimist may be well 
founded or not, but it is hard to meet for the 
simple reason that it is almost impossible to change 
the conviction of one whose conclusions have been 
reached through feeling rather than by argument, 
" I have seen and felt the bitterness of life " is a 
statement with which only a wise man can deal. 

The conviction that life is essentially evil was at 
the basis of Stoicism, and it is still pre- Pessimism 

wide- 

valent throughout the Orient, The Per- spread. 
sians were so impressed with the hopeless miseries 
of existence that Zoroaster imagined that the sover- 
eignty of the universe was divided between two 
Gods, one evil and one good, and that eternal war- 
fare was waged between them. The faiths of 
India, and of others which originated there, are all 
pervaded by a hopeless melancholy. One division 
of Buddhists teaches that true wisdom is the real- 
ization of the nothingness of things ; and another 
division teaches that enlightenment comes only to 
those who first have learned that existence is essen- 
tially miserable. These two articles of faith appear 
in one way or another in most forms of Hindu 
and Buddhist religion. Nirvana, whether in Hindu 
or Buddhist thought, and whether it mean the 



82 THE AGE OF FAITH 

destruction of the personality, the disintegration 
of what is called the Ego, or the cessation of the 
pains of transmigration, is the blessed relief which 
is reached by those who have learned that the 
cause of suffering is existence. The Hindus and 
Buddhists as a class are pessimists. Some of them 
say that the only way to escape from misery is to 
deny its reality, and the others insist that the only 
door out of misery is cessation of conscious being. 
Is not the generous hospitality which western 
countries give to these faiths due to the fact that 
the burden of suffering rests so largely on western 
minds also ? 

Whatever the explanation of isolated experi- 
ences, the argument by which pessimism justifies 
itself is threefold : the testimony of others as to 
the outlook, as embodied in literature — especially 
poetry and philosophy ; personal experience of 
suffering with no hope of escape ; observation of 
how life and the universe appear to those living in 
our time. This is the argument offered. But the 
causes of pessimism, other than such as are found 
in the temperament, in physical disease, and in the 
constancy of suffering, lie much deeper. Where 
shall they be found ? 

Pessimism is almost a necessity where there is 
faith neither in God nor in a future life. The 
gloom of existence without this light is illustrated 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 83 

in the drama of Job, which is the sublimest study 
of human suffering, and the causes of it, one cause of 
that the world contains. A man suffers ^^^''^'''^^ 
enough to crush one who is less strong, and the 
suffering is without any apparent cause. His 
friends gather around him, and aggravate his 
misery with the hard and cruel theology and phi- 
losophy which teach that suffering is always a sign 
of divine displeasure. That teaching forces the in- 
quiry as to what kind of a Deity He must be who 
can allow such penalties when there has been no 
conscious wrongdoing. The result is that Job ap- 
pears to the men of his time to be an infidel who 
merits his fate. He repudiates their God ; and his 
case is utterly dark until two faint gleams of light 
give encouragement. The first is the conviction 
that if there is a God there must some time be an 
explanation of what seems to be inexplicable. 
He cries, " O that I knew where I might find 
Him ! " The second is in the suggestion that life 
may not end with death : " If a man die, shall he 
live again ? " If so, unseen forces may work to 
beneficent ends. Job was a pessimist, and with 
good reason, until he became convinced of the 
possibility of a just God and of a future life. 
From that motnent what had been only dim and 
faint suggestions of light began to expand into 
broad ra.js. Then even his sufferings were seen 



84 THE AGE OF FAITH 

to have meaning, and he could declare in the most 
magnificent optimism which has ever found ex- 
pression : " Though He slay me, yet will I trust 
Him." 

The book of Job is typical. Pessimism is a 
Pessimism ncccssary and logical conclusion if there is 

inevitable 

when there no God and uo futurc life. Faith in both 

IS no Faith 

in God. -g essential to a rational and enduring op- 

timism. I do not mean that there are not many 
optimists who are convinced of neither, but I am 
sure that their optimism is temperamental rather 
than rational. If there is no Providential order of 
the world, then men are as likely to suffer as to be 
happy, and there is no meaning in their pains. 
Suffering, which is sure to work toward a benefi- 
cent end, may be endured. Hope sustains those 
who without it would be crushed. Let us suppose 
that this universe is an infinite and everlasting 
machine, or an ocean of matter and force without 
bound, without intelligence, without love — other 
than such as may be found in human beings. Into 
the midst of these hot furnaces, or into the midst 
of these multitudinous waves, a sensitive, aspiring, 
loving child is born. He grows to manhood, by 
some good luck escaping suffering. But at last 
the trouble begins. All around are forces from 
which he cannot escape. He is like a man im- 
prisoned between flying wheels which every mo- 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMrSM 85 

ment approach closer, or like one tossed on waves 
which hourly become more cruel. He steps one 
side, and a hand is crushed ; another side, and a 
foot is wounded ; forward, and his head is gashed ; 
backward, and he is met by a heavy blow. He 
feels that he is made for something better, but 
only now and then is any relief allowed him. He 
begins to ask questions. Is there anything outside 
these wheels ? " No : only wheels rolling every- 
where and forever." Is there any Being strong 
enough to reach down and stop this remorseless 
whirl? "No, there is no one greater then the 
wheels ; no one started them, and no one can stop 
them." Is there no hope? "No hope." Then 
why should I not throw myself beneath the heavi- 
est at once, and so end this mockery ? And we 
echo, Why not ? This is not an unfair or exag- 
gerated statement of what life is to many in many 
lands. For a while they escape severe suffering, 
but soon it begins. They are twinged by rheuma- 
tism and racked by neuralgia ; they are disap- 
pointed ; they love and love is not returned ; they 
win a position and then lose all ; they are ambi- 
tious and forever defeated ; they feel able to do 
great things and are allowed opportunity to do no- 
thing; they are like birds beating themselves 
against their cages : thus they grow old ; the snows 
fall on their heads and dimness comes into their 



86 THE AGE OF FAITH 

eyes, but tlie ambition is as young and the lieart 
as tender as ever. Let one such stop and ask a 
few questions. What is the meaning of all this 
limitation and suffering, this buffeting and constant 
defeat, this physical and mental agony ? " It has 
no meaning." No meaning ! why then is it al- 
lowed ? " It is not allowed — it just is, that is all, 
and all inquiries as to how and why are useless." 
Is there no one who can interfere and protect me ? 
I did not bring myself here. I am not suffering 
for wrong which I have done. " There is no one ; 
beyond the forces of what we call nature there is 
neither intelligence nor heart." But how will this 
end? If by and by there is to be accomplished 
some good purpose, I will be as brave as possible. 
" There is no good purpose to be accomplished. 
After a while you will get so that you can endure 
it no longer, and then you will lie down and die — 
and that will be all." Why not lie down and die 
now, and so make an end of the farce and save yet 
years of suffering ? And I cannot help echoing, 
Why not ? Pessimism is logical and usually inev- 
itable where there is faith neither in God nor in 
the future life. 

But suppose that when the man who feels that 
he has endured all that a human being can endure 
asks his searching question, a strong clear voice 
which he can reasonably trust responds : " Yes ; 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 87 

there is One whose eyes are never removed from 
you ; He will not allow you to be tested ^j^^ ^^^^^ 
above what you are able to bear, and He God and The 

., , , iv • 1 Future Life. 

permits what you are now suliering be- 
cause in that way only can the finest and most 
enduring character be developed. You are being 
made stronger and better, more intelligent, more 
loving, of more robust and resolute will." Well, 
that is good so far as it goes ; but what is the use 
of perfection of character if after a few years I 
am simply to die and be buried ? Why should I 
care to be better ? and why should He care to have 
me better if all that is before me is death and 
extinction? The game is not worth the candle. 
The voice continues : " But death cannot touch 
spirit ; and the suffering of which you complain, 
and which is bitter, is only discipline ; and not one 
sob of sorrow, not one tear of grief, and not one 
twinge of pain are allowed that may not be utilized 
to fit you for a brighter and happier time when 
the spirit shall no longer be in the body." And 
is that the meaning of what I am enduring? Is 
there One caring for me whose love never fails ? 
whose intelligence and wisdom are absolute ? and 
who cannot be defeated? And is my being as 
endless as His ? " These things are even so." 
Then I can be patient ; then I can kiss the rod as 
it falls, for I know that perfect love can permit 



88 THE AGE OF FAITH 

nothing that may not be used to promote the wel- 
fare of any creature. If man lives beyond what 
we call death, there is time enough for the reversal 
of what now seems only dark and unjust. 

We are thus led to ask, What is the problem of 
The Problem Optimism? Stated iu the simplest terms 

of Optimism. •. • , .i ■• T tj? ±.i 

it IS to answer the question, is lite worth 
living? But this inquiry is not easy to meet. 
In its larger relations optimism, with its eyes wide 
open to all that surely is evil, cruel, hateful, 
wicked, has still to justify the universe ; to show 
that even the processes through which men are 
passing are themselves justified by the results to be 
obtained. This is something very different from 
the happy -go-easy way of looking at things which 
characterizes many people who shut their eyes to 
what they do not like, and declare that everything 
is beautiful because they will not see anything that 
is ugly. There are temperamental optimists as 
there are temperamental pessimists. The one can- 
not see any evil anywhere ; the other cannot see 
any good, and both are equally blind and false in 
their conclusions. 

If optimism has any justification, what is the 
problem which it faces in view of what the indi- 
vidual and corporate life of man is, and in view of 
what the universe is ? It has to show that what 
seems evil in the life of the individual, like suffer- 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 89 

ing and even sin, are not to be estimated by what 
they are in themselves ; that they are means 
toward benefit and blessing — both for the individ- 
ual and the race. It has to show that what seems 
cruel and imperfect in nature has larger ends, and 
that those ends are beneficent. Moreover, while 
recognizing the awful and constant factors of suf- 
fering and sin, it has to show that the " nature of 
things " is on the side of truth and benefit, and 
that somehow and somewhere all that now appears 
to be hostile to man will be seen to be friendly, 
and helpful toward the higher and blessed levels. 
This is a task of no small magnitude ; and yet, one 
which must be performed if the life of man is to be 
more than a farce, and the progress of the race is 
to continue. Here we meet a prophetic truth : the 
faith that progress is a reality which no forces can 
long hinder shows that in the deeps of their being 
men do believe that the prize to be won is worth 
the struggle. If we deny this with our words, we 
often affirm it by our deeds. It is an interesting 
fact that the living religions of the world are those 
which are most optimistic. The missionary reli- 
gions are the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, and the 
Christian. The Buddhists are supposed to be con- 
firmed pessimists, and they are ; but the most 
aggressive sect of northern Buddhism is the Shin 
Shiu, which compared with all the other sects, and 



90 THE AGE OF FAITH 

indeed with all other forms of Indian religion, is 
hopeful of a blessed consummation for the individ- 
ual and the race. It holds that the " Western 
Paradise " is a state of conscious existence, of pro- 
gress and happiness. This belief has supplanted 
the common teaching concerning the unconscious- 
ness and monotony of Nirvana. Mohammedanism 
and Christianity are both essentially optimistic. 

The importance of a wise and clear solution of 
problems which optimism faces is apparent. There 
will be no long-continued progress without an ade- 
quate motive. Such motive cannot coexist with 
the belief that the universe is essentially heartless ; 
that individual life has no outlook ; that suffering 
and sorrow are ends in themselves and not means 
for the realization of some high and fine purpose. 
If there is no place for hopes like these, then 
the universe is a prison-house and " life is woe " 
indeed. 

But whatever may have been the experience 
of exceptional individuals, this much is evident, — 
the race as a whole has not been thus pessimistic. 
The youth of succeeding generations have been 
educated and trained as if they had before them 
immortal possibilities, and when they have reached 
maturity they have worked, explored, sacrificed, as 
if it were worth while to do something and be some- 
thing in this present human life. Their instincts 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 91 

have been more rational than tlieir faiths. Where 
the mind has said, "I cannot see," the heart has 
responded, " I have felt." 

The problem of religion is to show that the ra- 
tional and necessary interpretation of life xhe Problem 
and the universe is that of optimism ; ° ^ ^^'^^' 
that pessimism is irrational; that it contradicts 
facts ; and that it is the worst enemy of the human 
race. There is wisdom in the Apostle's words, 
" We are saved by hope." When hope dies, every- 
thing else worth living for dies also. The problem 
of optimism is the problem of religion and of 
ethics. There is no basis for ethics if this is not 
a moral world ; and if it is a cruel and heartless 
world it is surely an immoral world. There is no 
reason in prayer, in sacrifice, in service, in wor- 
ship, in words of comfort by death-beds and grave- 
sides, if we are all dwellers in a realm of Cim- 
merian darkness, without horizon and without stars. 
Therefore he is the greatest benefactor of his kind 
who is able to show that there is a rational and 
enduring basis for the belief that what seems 
heartless and cruel is only because those who are 
absorbed with present experiences can seldom see 
the end toward which they are pressing. Life is 
much like a passage through a tunnel. The little 
child is in terror, because of the darkness and the 
roar of the train, until one with larger experience 



92 THE AGE OF FAITH 

calms his fears witli the assurance that the tun- 
nel is the shortest and safest way from the light 
behind to the brighter beauties which will quickly 
appear. 

With the problem of optimism now clearly in 
The Basis of ^^^ ^^ ^^® ready for the inquiry which 
Optimism, jj^g waited impatiently for an answer: 
What is the basis of Optimism ? Jesus was the 
supreme optimist. That was because He had clear 
vision. Faber says : " The hardest of all griefs to 
bear is a grief that is not sure." Without clear 
light at one point hope is impossible and absurd ; 
with light at that point it is reasonable and inev- 
itable. Is this universe in the hands of intelligent 
love ? or has it been created and swayed by fate 
and chance ? Is the life of the individual always 
within the leashes of intelligent love? or is man 
like a leaf on the wind, blown wherever the way- 
ward gusts may determine ? In previous chapters 
we have seen that the only rational interpretation 
of the universe and of life is that which may be 
called the paternal. This the instincts and long- 
ings of the race demand and prophesy ; and that 
these prophecies are correct is clearly affirmed by 
the Christian revelation. Indeed, its optimism is 
the strongest proof of the divinity of that revela- 
tion. Given one fact, and the problem before us 
solves itself, life has meaning, and history becomes 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 93 

the orderly progression of wise plans toward bene- 
ficent ends. That fact is, all things are in the hands 
of an infinite Father. We may believe in evolu- 
tion, but if evolution is in the hands of the Father- 
hood it is growth toward love and holiness, and no 
individual will be crushed by the processes. When 
God is assumed or proved, as the case may be, 
and is interpreted by fatherhood, two conclusions 
immediately, and of necessity, follow : everything 
is in accordance with a loving, intelligent, and om- 
nipotent purpose ; and the child, by virtue of his 
nature, will live as long as the One from whom his 
being is derived. If this is true, that which we 
call life is related to the whole human career as 
the utmost crest of a wave to the ocean. All the 
meaning and purpose to be realized by us can be 
crowded into no threescore and ten career. Brown- 
ing has said that this life is our one chance of 
learning love ; but there are other things to learn 
besides love, and things of whose existence we have 
not yet even dreamed. Such knowledge will re- 
quire other spheres and ages of experience, and 
what seems cruel here may become glorious by 
and by. The life of a seed underground is not 
its whole existence, but it is essential to the glory 
and beauty of a garden ; the dry chrysalis is not 
a very inspiring sight, but it precedes the golden 
wings that are soon to be spread in the sunlight. 



94 THE AGE OF FAITH 

The basis of optimism is faith in such a God as 
was revealed in Christ — God interpreted by fa- 
therhood. Nothing more is required, and nothing 
less will satisfy. If God pervading all things, con- 
trolling all things, determining all things, never 
wearying, never slumbering, never overlooking, 
never growing old, and abiding forever, is the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — that is all we 
need to know, since then truth and benefit and love 
must be the heritage of individuals, of the race, 
and of all the ages. 

This does not explain the processes by which 
we are disciplined, but it makes it possible for us 
to wait in confidence. Why do I suffer ? I do 
not know, but I can trust that no ill can come from 
Him. Why are hearts broken, homes dismem- 
bered, and the whole world mounded with graves ? 
We know not ; but behind them all is perfect love, 
and, therefore, we trust that some time and " some- 
how good will be the goal of ill." Jesus teaches 
that life, death, judgment, time, eternity, all men, 
all things, — everything is pervaded by God ; 
that His purpose is over all ; that God is the 
Father of all ; and consequently that a house- 
hold in which the father watches over his children, 
works for them, serves them, sacrifices for them, 
dies for them, is the world in miniature ; that the 
universe is the Father's house, and that no child 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 95 

ever has been or ever can be beyond the sway of 
His love and care. 

Pessimism disappears and optimism comes in 
radiant and reo:nant with the revelation of God as 
the Father Almighty. 

When God and the universe are interpreted in 
this the only way Jesus ever interpreted ^ ^. .^ , 

J J i Individuals 

them, the life of the individual is seen to father's 
be in accordance with a divine and there- 
fore beneficent plan. But how do you explain this 
loss, and that disappointment ? Why am I forced 
to exist a bundle of bare nerves exposed to dust 
and heat? Why are hopes disappointed and cher- 
ished plans defeated ? Why am I compelled to 
tread a dreary treadmill between the cradle and 
the grave ? He would be foolish who should seek 
to reply to such questions, which are always an 
exaggeration and distortion of the facts. No man 
can give an adequate answer. As in our earthly 
homes the children are led through disappointment 
and apparent loss toward larger life and better 
possessions by unfailing love, so in the darkness 
and storm every man is led by love that knows no 
favor and cannot fail. He who trusts to that reve- 
lation will praise God for everything; he who does 
not believe in it may be a Stoic, and may bear what 
comes as a cliif endures storms, but he will have 
no light, no joy, and no hope. Fatherhood is uni- 



96 THE AGE OF FAITH 

versal and eternal, therefore every man's life must 
be a plan of God. To recognize and live by that 
truth is wisdom which can never be transcended. 
Then there are no favorites ; then the end will jus- 
tify the process by which every man is disciplined 
and so fitted for his immortality. 

When the universe and God are interpreted by 
History in f atlicrhood, history is seen to be a world- 

the Hands of 

Fatherhood, movemcut in the interests of love, and all 
events to be moving toward a consummation which 
may well be called " the Golden Age." A short 
period of time usually confuses the student. Acts 
of violence, selfishness, moral and physical evil, 
are so near that they lead to the mistake that they 
are more numerous and powerful than they actu- 
ally are. I have elsewhere observed that historical 
students are usually optimists, while philosophers 
and poets are sometimes pessimists. The reason 
is not far to find. The former take long views, 
they study centuries ; while the latter consider 
things in their little horizons. The decades are 
often dark while the centuries are bright. Taken 
by themselves, such periods as the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, or of the Thirty Years' War, seem 
to be set on fire of hell. The martyrs of the 
Inquisition may well have wondered whether there 
was any God in heaven or on earth ; but we who 
look backward can see that such human butchers 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 97 

as Torqaemada and the Duke of Alva were over- 
ruled, and made to help the progress of liberty and 
brotherhood. Every martyr-fire around the body 
of a saint who is called a heretic has helped toward 
religious liberty ; and every drop of blood shed by 
tyrants has proved a rich investment in the cause 
of individual freedom. Nothing is more easily 
verified than that injustice is usually overruled in 
the interests of humanity. The blood of the mar- 
tyrs is the seed of the church, and of many other 
good causes also. History is like a broad stream 
into which Christianity entered as a thread-like 
line of pure water. Slowly the mass of tears 
and blood has grown smaller and that line of 
pure water broader ; and as it moves still onward 
the process of purification is constantly hastened. 
But now the question arises. What warrant have 
we that the course of this stream will not be de- 
flected, and that it will not once more become 
turbid and fotil? Here optimism has its answer. 
History follows ever a predestined course. He 
who determines its channel is a Being of per- 
fect wisdom and absolute love. Nothing goes 
by chance. If a star or a man could have abso- 
lute independence, everything might soon be in 
confusion. The apparent confusion in history is 
due to the fact that man has a measure of free- 
dom, while the star is held closely to the sweep of 



98 THE AGE OF FAITH 

its orbit; but ever outside the freedom of man 
is the purpose of God, and that must be good or 
there is no God, for a God who is not perfect is 
no God. 

But do you know there is a God ? The affirma- 
Existence tive auswer to that question is assumed 
assumed. in this chapter. On no other hypothesis 
is any light on human life's mystery possible. 
What satisfactorily solves the most difficult of 
problems, which otherwise would be insoluble, it 
is no presumption to assume as a fundamental 
reality. Given God, who is truly interpreted by 
fatherhood, and it requires no special revelation, 
nor peculiarly prophetic vision, to see that the 
stream of history will go on growing purer and 
sweeter, until it will be like the river of God 
which flows from out the midst of the throne. 
Some time all that is bestial will be eliminated 
from humanity, and the child of God made a fit 
and worthy companion for his Father. True, this 
is imagination, but it is imagination inspired by 
fact and guided by a logical necessity. When it 
is realized that the universe is pervaded by father- 
hood ; that the God who is immanent in the 
creation is not a mere abstraction or a vague 
sentiment, but a strong and tender personality, then 
our physical environment is no longer regarded as 
a prison-house. Heaven not only lies about us in 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 99 

our infancy, but it follows us until the body is laid 
aside and after. The severe and mysterious facts 
of nature are not here explained away. The earth- 
quake, the tornado, the tidal wave, the lightning 
and the thunder, as well as all subtle miasms, are 
as dreadful as ever, but they are only mysteries 
which wait for explanation. The tidal waves are 
few, and most people never hear of them ; torna- 
does are awful phenomena, but insignificant when 
compared with the clear shining of the sun through 
countless days ; miasms stab in the day and the 
night, but usually they attack only those who in- 
vite attack, and it is not inconceivable, where they 
are not the result of unsanitary conditions for 
which man is responsible, that they may serve be- 
neficent ends. If there were no other revelation, 
a little study would show the beneficence of the 
nature of things. When the tidal waves, the earth- 
quakes, the tornadoes, and all that works violence 
and suffering, are balanced against what is bright 
and beautiful ; against the mountains with their 
awful grandeur, and the gardens with their blos- 
soms and perfumes ; against the forests, with their 
bushes aflame with God and unconsumed ; and 
when we add the days of cloudless skies and those 
made glorious by the intermingling of cloud and 
light ; when we balance against all the evil, all the 
beauty, the grandeur, all that makes for health and 

LofC. 



100 THE AGE OF FAITH 

happiness, all that ministers to human welfare, it 
is impossible to believe that the nature of things is 
not benevolent and beneficent. And when there 
is added to this the faith that the universe is the 
palace of the immanent God ; that He is omni- 
present and everlasting, it is easy to understand 
the enthusiasm of the poet who in an earlier and 
ruder time sang : " The heavens declare the glory 
of God ; " and of that other significant and pro- 
found utterance : " Thou hast beset me behind and 
before." The doctrine of the Divine Immanence 
means that the whole universe, with its mountains, 
seas, stars, constellations, everything everywhere, 
now and forever, is pervaded by fatherhood, and 
fatherhood does not suggest the All which will 
some time absorb everything, but the absolute 
and infinite Person who may commune with other 
spirits without being limited by them. 

This interpretation has its culmination on the 
earth in what is called the Kingdom of God. This 
is not all to be in the future. It is already mani- 
fest in many hearts and lives. It has always had 
some place among men. A few at least have al- 
ways done justly, loved mercy, and walked humbly 
before God. In Jesus that kingdom was clearly 
manifested as perfect truth, perfect justice, and 
perfect love. Where the spirit of Christ is, there 
is the kingdom of God. Through the centuries it 



THE BASIS OF OPTIMISM 101 

has been silently but ceaselessly growing. Each 
century since the Advent, this world has been a 
better world ; and the improvement is manifest 
not only in individuals but in laws, in institutions, 
in social usages, and even in the way that war is 
conducted. The most civilized nations no longer 
kill prisoners ; they treat their enemies in their 
own hospitals, and care for them as if thej^ had 
fallen in defense of the cause which in reality they 
have been opposing. In every department of af- 
fairs conduct and ideals have become more humane, 
and those who regard not the name of Christ uncon- 
sciously are becoming like Him, and glorying in 
the transformation. And this work is to go on 
until the kingdom of God fills the earth. The 
promise that the seed of the woman should bruise 
the serpent's head was of the nature of prophecy. 
Crimes are committed in the name of liberty, and 
brotherhood often seems a farce, but when and 
where has it been less so? The mind of man was 
made for truth; the conscience of man insists on 
right ; and the heart of man can be satisfied only 
with love. The kingdom of God is the sway of 
truth and right and love. This is a trinity con- 
cerning whose divinity there is no controversy. 

When the universe is recognized as the abode 
of God ; when the Divine immanence is realized 
as the prevalence of fatherhood in every part of 



i 



102 THE AGE OF FAITH 

what we vaguely call the creation ; when we have 
grasped the superlative reality that fatherhood 
besets not only every man but everything, uses all 
energies and pervades all forces, and is everlast- 
ing, it is not difficult to understand that every 
human life and all the universe are encompassed 
by a purpose which in the end cannot be defeated, 
and which some time will achieve the perfect sover- 
eignty of truth and right and love. Then not only 
the ways of God will be justified to man, but the 
nature of things will show that love has never been 
absent, and that from the hour when the morning 
stars first sang together, in every land and every 
time and forever, love has been regnant and vic- 
torious. 



BROTHEEHOOD 

Is tlie human race a brotlierliood, or have individ- 
uals in humanity no relation to one another, other 
than grains of sand, or the mountains of a range? 
With the correct answers to these questions goes 
the solution of all social problems. If men are 
related only as grains of sand or mountains, then 
egoism is not only justifiable, but inevitable. On 
the other hand if humanity is a brotherhood, altru- 
ism needs no justification ; it is the natural human 
condition and some time will be universal. The 
fundamental inquiry of theology concerns the exist- 
ence and nature of God : the fundamental inquiry 
of sociology is. How may brotherhood be made 
a reality ? Theology and sociology are but the 
application of the scientific method to the formula 
into which Jesus condensed the moral law : "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 
thy neighbor as thyself." 

There appears to be a revival of interest in social 
subjects, but the revival is only apparent. In 
reality the thought and inquiry of ages of investi- 



104 THE AGE OF FAITH 

gation along these lines are coming to fruitage. 
Interest in The liuHian problem has always been the 

Social Ques- 
tions, most pressing because it is the nearest. 

The Exodus under Moses was the beginning of a 
new nation, but still more it was a gigantic labor- 
revolt directed by a masterful leader. The wail 
of the oppressed workers was as clamorous in 
ancient Egypt as in modern Belgium. The Caesars 
were engaged in foreign conquest, but still more 
in efforts to keep the pauper multitudes at home 
from open revolt. To-day the poor demand work 
that they may live : then they demanded a living 
without work. Nothing more conclusively answers 
the inquiry. Is the world growing better ? than the 
changed condition of the laboring classes. For- 
merly without organization they were satisfied with 
" food and the circus ; " but now they are organ- 
ized and eager not only to be independent but also 
to improve. The labor question perplexed rulers 
and thinkers in the Middle Ages. Poverty which 
had reached the vitals of states was vainly treated 
with anodynes of charity by the religious orders. 
In the seventeenth century thought was largely 
absorbed with theological speculations, but from 
the midst of them also the ever present social agi- 
tation emerged. At first what is called the Puri- 
tan revolution was a contest as to the right of a 
man to think for himself, but that quickly reached 



BROTHERHOOD 105 

back to the prior question as to whether he is 
human and has any rights. 

This is preeminently the age of humanity. 
Many causes have cooperated in making the rela- 
tion of man to man the most conspicuous and 
imperative of all subjects of inquiry. 

There is interest in theology, and noble contri- 
butions to its literature have recently appeared ; 
physical science continues her explorations and 
ministries, but both theology and science hold a 
subordinate place in the thought of the world. 
The one subject which, in various forms, is every- 
where uppermost concerns human relations and 
duties. This is evident in the growth of demo- 
cratic ideals, in the increasing power and promi- 
nence of the laboring classes, in the quickness 
with which those seeking political preferment dis- 
cern that they have to deal with the many rather 
than the few, in the world-wide combinations of 
workingmen, in current literature which is largely 
humanitarian, in the increasing frequency and 
boldness of the revolts of employees, and perhaps 
most of all in the emphasis of teachers of religion. 
No preacher of this generation has had a wide in- 
fluence among those who think, who has not been 
humanitarian in his teachings. The only possible 
exception is Mr. Spurgeon. Of him two things 
may be said. His influence was far-reaching, but 



106 THE AGE OF FAITH 

it was popular rather than permanent, and, while 
his emphasis was on theology, his spirit and prac- 
tice were democratic. On the other hand, the 
prophets o£ the age, the teachers of the teachers, 
those whom the people are following, and widely 
quoting, have in the forefront of their creeds what 
once was commonly and sneer ingly called " Hu- 
manitarianism." 

The welfare of humanity has long been the chief 
subject of speculation and investigation. Now and 
then it has been obscured by wars and revolutions, 
but when the storms have passed, the compass has 
always been found pointing toward the rights of 
man. 

Socialism, communism, anarchism, — the blind 
and frantic efforts of the masses to find truth and 
reality, — can be overlooked by no observing per- 
son. There is but one way in which the prevailing 
unrest can be alleviated, and that is by showing that 
there is something better than socialism, commu- 
nism, anarchism. That better ideal is brotherhood. 
But before there will be any widespread or endur- 
ing faith in brotherhood it must be shown to be 
elemental and a part of the order of the universe. 
Socialism is a larger form of egoism ; its spirit and 
methods are selfish. Communism is advocated by 
those who wish to secure a competence without 
effort. Brotherhood alone is altruistic, and it alone 



BROTHERHOOD 107 

offers the world something better than it already 
possesses. But brotherhood depends on father- 
hood. No fatherhood, no brotherhood ; no bro- 
therhood, no better social order. Rational opti- 
mism concerning man in his social relations always 
coexists with faith in " God the Father Almighty." 
Without Him there will be nothing more encourag- 
ing than " the survival of the fittest," and struggle 
and battle to the end of the chapter : with Him 
somehow good must be the goal of the social strug- 
gle. Since He is, not one human being will be 
left without sympathy and fellowship. 

The importance of a rational basis for brother- 
hood appears when we consider the fate Basis of 

Faith in 

of a few attempts at social betterment. Brother- 

^ hood. 

Experiments with democracy in the 
past have been dismal failures for the reason that 
they were in the interest of a few. What was 
called democracy in Greece was oligarchy incor- 
rectly spelled. It sought the welfare of the elect at 
the expense of the many. The slaves were always 
more numerous than the citizens. Because there 
was no brotherhood, there was no democracy. 

The French Revolutionists adopted a noble 
motto with enough truth in it to make it popular 
— " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ; " and enough 
error in it to insure the failure of their cause. They 
professed brotherhood, but the mob was more 



108 THE AGE OF FAITH 

tyrannical than the king. There was liberty only 
for those who could stultify themselves enough to 
declare that the lurid glare of Marat and Robes- 
pierre was the dawn of a fairer day. The rights 
of man were recognized only in theory. A few 
agitators, blatant and bloody in a cause which 
they did not understand, could not make a real 
democracy. Robespierre knew no more about bro- 
therhood than Louis XIV. Danton was as great 
a tyrant as Richelieu. 

The abolition of slavery in the United States 
was a war measure. It was good as far as it went, 
but the condition of the emancipated millions and 
their children has not greatly improved. The 
presence of the colored millions was never more 
perilous to the republic than now, because emanci- 
pation has not been accompanied with an appre- 
ciation of brotherhood. However much the white 
population may protest and however vociferous 
their orthodoxy on other subjects, their treatment 
of the colored people shows that they do not be- 
lieve that God has made of one blood all the races 
of men, and that so far they are infidels. This 
statement applies no more to those who live in the 
Southern districts of the United States than to 
many who dwell at the North and in other lands. 
Democracies, revolutions, emancipations, are more 
or less failures when they are unaccompanied by 



1 



BROTHERHOOD 109 

the faitli that universal brotherhood is necessitated 
by the fatherhood of God. 

No scheme for social improvement that does not 
have brotherhood as its final goal is worth either 
effort or sacrifice. It is doomed as soon as an- 
nounced. 

The question of brotherhood is therefore both 
practical and pressing. Here an interesting fact 
emerges. 

Appreciation of man always rises or falls with 
the conception of God. t^roTMan 

In India, where the idea of God is pan- the concep- 
theistic, and He is identified with the 
Cosmic process, a few individuals rise above their 
fellow men like the mountains of Thibet, but the 
majority of the people are crushed beneath bur- 
dens which have grown heavier with the centuries. 
-There is little sense of humanity. There are many 
there who by birth are condemned to slavery, and 
a few favored souls who fondly imagine that they 
alone are emanations from the divine. Belief in 
a naturalistic God always results in dehumanized 
men. 

In the old religions of Japan the Deity and the 
law of causation are identified. There is no in- 
telligence, love, nor choice in their teaching con- 
cerning the Supreme Power. An endless chain of 
causation is aU. Consequently for centuries that 



110 THE AGE OF FAITH 

social condition did not improve. Until western 
civilization broke the barriers of racial reserve 
there was vice, degradation, stagnation, retrogres- 
sion, but no progress. Humanity rises where there 
is ground for hope in some better state. Humane 
feelings die when the basis of optimism is taken 
away. If men are only individuals in an end- 
less succession, and if all must fall when one is 
touched, despair is inevitable. Where hope dies, 
efforts to improve the race cease. Then the evo- 
lutionary process is reversed and the individual 
moves far back toward the animal. 

In Greece the conception of the gods was singu- 
larly anthropomorphic. They were sublimated men 
with bestial passions and tendencies. When the 
object of worship is viler than the one who wor- 
ships, the moral life is degraded. The teaching 
that Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are 
yet without sin was, to say the least, a rare stroke 
of genius. The Greek gods were sinners, and the 
Greeks were sinners like their gods. Jove was an 
adulterer, and adultery was common among those 
who worshiped Jove. Venus was voluptuous, and 
the story of Helen was inevitable. There were 
controversies among the gods, and wars between 
the states and with outside nations. In the long 
run no people ever rise higher than the Being 
whom they worship. Is God identified with the 



BROTHERHOOD 111 

processes of nature? Then man will think of 
himself as but one of millions of manifestations 
of the infinite, in whom there is place neither for 
choice nor for responsibility. Is God the unintel- 
ligent law of causation ? Then every man is what 
he must be, and human relations, like all relations, 
are determined by necessity. If there are wars 
among the Gods and it is impossible for one deity 
to respect another, men will be equally unmindful 
of each other. The contrast between the Ethnic 
and the Hebrew conceptions of God and their 
effect on human relations is evident and impressive. 
The Hebrew equally with the Hindu regarded the 
Deity as infinite, but he held also that He is per- 
sonal and intelligent. He taught with the Bud- 
dhist that He is the First Cause and the Constant 
Cause, but he insisted that He has the power of 
choice and of imparting that power to men. The 
Hebrew as well as the Greek believed that God 
is interested in human affairs, and also that He 
is perfectly holy. Such teaching led the Hebrews 
to put emphasis on individual responsibility and 
personal purity. But even their ideal was rather 
that of a tribal or a national Deity than of one 
supreme, infinite, and universal person. Jehovah 
was a tribal or racial God like Zeus. Some of 
the prophets rose to loftier heights, but the com- 
mon people believed that Jehovah was the pecu- 



112 THE AGE OF FAITH 

liar property of their nation. Their human sym- 
pathy was bounded by the nation's frontiers, and 
within those limits there was brotherhood but not 
beyond. 

There was no brotherhood among the Hindus. 
The suggestion of the possibility is ludicrous. Be- 
tween Brahman and Pariah yawns an impassable 
gulf. The Buddhists are charitable, but even their 
charity is selfish. It is the service of others in 
order that the ills of existence may be escaped, not 
that the sorrows of humanity may be relieved. 
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to this day are intel- 
lectual leaders, but they had no place in their 
system of thought for any real doctrine of brother- 
hood. I do not say that in those earlier times 
there were no adumbrations of this gracious teach- 
ing, but I do affirm that at no time was its light 
general, and that everywhere the conception of man 
and of his duties was determined by the popular 
ideas of the Deity. 

Jesus came with a new message. The key to 
His doctrines is the word "life." He explained 
everything so far as He explained anything in 
terms of life. While others used the firmament 
with its countless splendors, impersonal laws in 
whose tracks all things move, night and morning, 
oceans, mountains, and human governments, to 
convey hints of God, Jesus had but one name for 



BROTHERHOOD 113 

Him and that was Father. He always interpreted 
God in the terms of fatherhood. 

The social problem is very old, but since the 
time of Jesus it has assumed new forms. The oid 

T 1 • • *» 1 Problem in a 

The Exodus, and the msurrection of the New Form. 
gladiators in Rome, for instance, were convulsive 
efforts of slaves to get relief. The idea of a social 
philosophy founded on the rights of man, so far as 
I have learned, was unknown before the Christian 
era, and has been unknown since where the teach- 
ings of Jesus have had no authority. But where 
His words have been read in the light of His life, 
the oppressed have asserted their manhood because 
they have learned that equally with those who 
seem more favored they are children of God ; that 
the Almighty has no favorites; that He never 
intended that any natural riches like air, land, 
water, should be the monopoly of a few. As the 
people have been taught that there is no "finer 
clay," that if any have preponderant advantage it 
is because of an accidental and not an inherent 
right, they have attempted to correct social injus- 
tice. The dearest phrase to the common people 
of the world is "the brotherhood of man." The 
majesty of the fact at last has dawned upon them 
like a sun. The inspiration of most socialism, and 
the power behind the unwearying effort to rise 
among those who work with their hands, is faith 



114 THE AGE OF FAITH 

in human brotherhood. Many social panaceas are 
still selfish because, while the people are becom- 
ing conscious of brotherhood, they have not yet, 
with equal clearness, discerned the reality of the 
Divine Fatherhood. 

The contribution of Jesus toward the solution 
of the social problem is the light which falls from 
the two words fatherhood and brotherhood. 

The supreme need of the present time is a cor- 
rect understanding of the meaning and responsibil- 
ities of brotherhood. That can be gained only by 
interpreting the social problem in the light of 
fatherhood. 

What is implied by brotherhood ? Let us seek 
Contents of au auswcr in the terms of fatherhood. 

Brother- 
hood. Fatherhood implies identity of nature 

between parent and child. There are difficulties 
here, but difficulties must not be allowed to obscure 
facts. Jesus teaches the universal fatherhood of 
God ; and that necessitates the conclusion that in 
some way all men are of the same nature as the 
Deity ; and that in turn compels the further con- 
clusion that there is, and can be, no difference in 
the essential nature of various groups of men, and 
that all divisions between them other than ethical 
ones are artificial and ephemeral. 

I fully appreciate the difficulties which at this 
point confront the student of human life. Much 



BROTHERHOOD 115 

of our thinking in its search after great things 
overlooks more important facts which lie near at 
hand. It may well be asked, How can you in- 
sist on the fatherhood of God when human parent- 
hood is so often accidental and unwelcome ? We 
call this child " our little surprise," said a some- 
what free-spoken woman to one who was visiting 
at her home. If the history of the birth of a 
large proportion of the human race were written, 
the story could be condensed into one phrase, " a 
surprise." How can the accidents of humanity 
result in children of God in any but a Pickwickian 
sense? It will not do to blink this question, and 
yet to answer it is not easy. I content myself with 
recalling the teachings of Jesus. He affirmed the 
fatherhood of God, implying, as it does, identity 
of nature between parent and child. In every 
man equally there is something divine. But why 
say equally? Because it is impossible that it 
should be otherwise. My children must either be 
equally my children or not at all my children. A 
difference in constitution cannot make one fully a 
child and another partially so. The sweep of this 
truth is revolutionary, but it is also magnificent. 

If this claim is true, all discriminations between 
men founded on imagined or racial dif- Race Pre- 

, judice Irra- 

ferences are without a basis in reason, tionai. 
The blackest and most uncouth African, the found- 



116 THE AGE OF FAITH 

ling of the slums who has known neither father nor 
mother, the bastard, the criminal, the outcast, are 
all, equally with the most refined and cultured, 
children of God ; and, unless they have forfeited 
them, by nature equally entitled to the rights, the 
privileges, and the possessions of children of God. 
There is something sacred in humanity. This is 
generally recognized now, but within a quarter 
of a century systems of theology began with the 
essential and natural worthlessness of man. Such 
doctrines are now giving place to emphasis on 
the worth and divinity of humanity. The change 
of emphasis is revolutionizing political economy as 
well as theology. But even now it is affirmed that 
labor is a commodity to be bought and sold like 
any other. This is the stronghold of selfishness. 
Shall I not use my money as I choose ? Shall I 
not get for it all that it will bring? If there is 
no fatherhood, then selfishness is logical ; but fa- 
therhood carries with it identity of nature between 
parent and child ; and therefore every laborer is 
of the nature of God, and he who has the nature 
of God cannot in right and reason be treated like 
the products of factory and field. To buy and 
sell labor is to make barter of a child of God. 
How do such prejudices look in the light of father- 
hood? 

That our ecclesiasticism and our science have 



BROTHERHOOD 117 

made so little impression on the Chinese wall of 
racial exclusiveness is the most pathetic indictment 
of modern civilization. The Jew is still under a 
ban in nearly every country in Europe. With all 
the boasted hospitality and liberality of the United 
States, he is made to feel that he is still an alien. 

But the ostracism of the Jew is child's play when 
compared with the treatment of the colored man. 
If the line were drawn at cleanliness, at decency, 
at moral character, it could easily be justified, but 
the line is drawn at blood. The most eloquent 
orator in America is a colored man ; and he is not 
only an orator but a practical statesman, with a 
vision and grasp of affairs unsurpassed by any 
man south of Mason and Dixon's line, and yet in 
few parts of the country would he be welcome 
at a first-class hotel, and when he returns to the 
State of which he is the most distinguished citizen, 
he' is compelled to ride in a " Jim Crow car," while 
rowdies and prostitutes are welcomed to the best 
that the roads can furnish. Many of the leaders 
in the perpetuation of race -prejudice bear the 
name of Christian, and masquerade in the gar- 
ments of the church. That the black man is a 
child of God, and a brother, is the illuminating 
message of Jesus, and in that light all other ques- 
tions concerning him should be settled. In this 
respect the barbarism of the United States is as 



118 THE AGE OF FAITH 

cruel, and far less justifiable than that of Turkey 
or Spain. 

How does the oppression of the poor look in the 
light of the Divine Fatherhood? At this point 
economic theories are of the least possible conse- 
quence. At no time during the last century has 
there been one hour when there has not been food 
and clothing sufficient for all living in civilized 
lands, and yet hundreds, and probably thousands, 
have annually died of hunger and cold, because 
there has been no way of getting together the man 
and the things which he needed. 

In spite of all progress, the same conditions con- 
tinue. There are factories where men work from 
six in the morning until seven at night, with slight 
intermissions, for the paltry pay of a pound a week, 
while those who do no work receive and spend fool- 
ishly the rewards of those who labor. Women are 
still paid two cents and a half apiece for making 
garments, when by constant toil they can earn 
barely enough to exist, not enough to live. Some 
are even told that, in ways of which it is a shame to 
speak, they should supplement their scanty wages. 

These are illustrations of the social struggle, 
„, „ . , and they tell a fearful story. The diffi- 

The Social '^ "^ 

mSpre- cultics are grievously misrepresented by 
sented. many who know the truth. The labor- 
ing classes no doubt often have unwise leaders ; 



BROTHERHOOD 119 

and parasites suck the life-blood of many who are 
trying to rise, but the great multitudes know what 
they need, even if their ways of expression are 
rude. Tourgenieff's story of Mumu is true to life. 
Millions conscious of love and aspiration are mis- 
understood, and when they plead for simple justice, 
they are crushed. When these facts are published, 
they meet the reply, " Well, what can be done ? It 
is inevitable that some should suffer." It is inevi- 
table that some should suffer, but not necessary that 
any should go hungry, or cold, or lack for opportu- 
nity of improvement, because there would be food, 
clothing, and labor enough for all, if no one took 
more than his share, and all were to act toward 
one another as brothers. The most common and 
fatal of heresies is unwillingness to believe in the 
brotherhood of man. It is easy to confess that 
we are " miserable sinners," but more difficult to 
acknowledge with sincerity that all men are equals 
in rights and privileges. A new article should be 
added to all the Christian creeds. It should read 
as follows : " We believe that he that loveth not 
his brother whom he hath seen cannot love God 
whom he hath not seen." 

The teaching of Jesus is simple and clear. 
When He speaks of the Infinite, the Al- j,^^ Teach- 
mighty, He has but one word to express ^^ ^* '^^^^^' 
His meaning, and that word is Father. Whatever 



120 THE AGE OF FAITH 

else is implied in Infinite, Absolute, God, there 
can be nothing which may not be interpreted in 
terms of fatherhood. When he speaks of men, he 
has but one word by which to define their rela- 
tions and duties to one another, and that is brother. 
Fatherhood interprets brotherhood. When you 
know parents, you know children in their rights 
and relations. The children are the heirs of the 
parents unless disinherited. 

Brotherhood and fatherhood, as we have already 
shown, imply community of nature. All the chil- 
dren of God are by nature partakers of the life of 
God. They are called children of " wrath," or of 
" perdition," not to define their relations or duties, 
but to indicate that those relations and duties have 
been violated. 

My duty to my neighbor is limited at every 
point by his divine sonship. Jesus said : " Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ; " that is. Thou 
shalt remember that he has exactly the same na- 
ture as you have. Such a command, otherwise, 
would be without meaning, for no one can love a 
thing as he loves himself. 

Love for man is dependent on something in 
Love re- jjjan worthv of love, and that is found in 

quires a ^7 

objectf ^^^s essential divinity. 

There has been little if any philan- 
thropy where the teachings of Jesus have been 



BROTHERHOOD 121 

unknown or unheeded. If men are only things, 
there is no strong motive for the alleviation of 
suffering, or the saving of life. Why die like 
Howard and Waring to prevent the ravages of 
the plague ? Why deny one's self any pleasure 
to uplift the poor and the outcast ? If men are 
but matter in process of change, there is no ra- 
tional answer to these questions, but if all are 
brethren, then every motive which leads me to 
serve myself impels me with equal earnestness to 
seek the welfare of my fellow men. 

If I do not respect and honor myself, I cannot 
respect and honor my brother. If I am convinced 
that when I die I shall cease to be, I shall think 
the same concerning my fellow man. Then I shall 
have lost my motive for serving others, since merely 
material kinship makes no demand on love or duty. 
A man feels no obligation toward a tree or a 
stone. Brotherhood is defined and interpreted 
by fatherhood. All duties to men are short-lived 
which are not founded on our common relation to 
God. Expedients for social amelioration will 
fail if they do not discern the divinity which is in 
all men. 

The brotherhood of man is more than the dream 
of enthusiasts ; it is the ideal which some have 
sought in all ages, of which their efforts to rise 
have been prophecies — the normal human condi- 



122 THE AGE OF FAITH 

tion which will be realized when the Kingdom of 
God prevails. 

Struggle and battle cannot be final conditions ; 
they must be but means to ends, the way in which 
the race " mounts and meliorates " toward its " far- 
off divine event." 

There are three classes of thinkers on social 
Classes of subjccts at the present time. The first 
Thinkers. frankly ignores idealism in dealing with 
human affairs. " Business is business," whether 
it has to do with men or things. " Ideals have 
their place, no doubt, but it is not in settling ques- 
tions which vex society. Certain laws have been 
discovered, and they must hold whether we like 
them or not." Such thinkers ignore the nature of 
man and treat him as a thing. They see no differ- 
ence between a free spirit and the forces of nature 
or the products of the soil. 

The second class feels the hurts and burdens 
of humanity. It sees that something is wrong, 
and devotes itself to efforts to alleviate the evident 
agonies of the social disease. It ignores causes 
and treats symptoms. That course may succeed 
in medicine, but it is not a wise way to deal with 
social disorders. The people who suffer do not 
wait to learn the best way to accomplish their ob- 
jects ; they simply rebel against what they feel that 
they can no longer endure. Their efforts end, as 



BROTHERHOOD 123 

spasms usually end, in weakness, if not in an in- 
crease of the disease. All such efforts are com- 
monly though often inaccurately called socialistic. 

The other school of thinkers, realizing intensely 
the ills from which society is suffering, seeks the 
cause of the trouble. It finds something wkicli 
cannot be cured by ansesthetics or palliatives. 
The first class says men are things, and are to be 
treated as things, and the more you do for them 
the more the misery is multiplied in the end : the 
second asks no questions, but strongly and franti- 
cally rebels against suffering, with the result that 
the misery is multiplied because the rebellion was 
not intelligent ; the third class looks deeper and 
finds a radical error in the way men think of them- 
selves and their fellow men. It insists that we 
must study our ancestry before we can know our 
lineage ; that we will learn that all men have equal 
rights when we discover that all have the same 
origin. 

Again we say fatherhood determines the duties 
and relations of children. Since all men are 
children of God, all are brothers in the heritage of 
the Divine Fatherhood. 

When we know what men are, and for what they 
were created, we may work for them intelligently. 
The struggling, aspiring, rebelling multitudes need 
to be taught that all m^en are brothers because all 



124 THE AGE OF FAITH 

have a common father. They will seek the best 
for themselves and for one another when they know 
themselves, and realize that one man's good should 
be all men's law. 

Let us now contrast the brotherhood of man as 
•o .^- ^ ^ taue^ht by Jesus with prevalent social 

Brotherhood o J x 

socM*^^^ ideals. Highest among these is Social- 

Ideals. • CI • T • 

ism. socialism is a name covermg many 
theories. It is enough for our purpose to define it 
as absorption by the state of all natural wealth, of all 
means of producing wealth, and of the distribution 
of the profits of labor. In most of its manifesta- 
tions it is as selfish as unrestricted competition, be- 
cause it is an effort of the many to secure more for 
themselves. It contains no element of love, mutual 
service, or sacrifice for the common welfare. It is 
an attempt to establish a social order which will 
give to those who now have little a larger share of 
natural wealth and of the products of labor. It 
proposes to do this by extending the sphere of 
government. But socialism would leave the heart 
of man as barren as before. It offers no motive 
beyond the hope of gain. Its ideals at the best are 
narrow and without relation to character. It may 
be called an expedient for evading the requirements 
of brotherhood. There will be socialists so long as 
there is wealth to be gained ; but brotherhood will 
endure so long as men believe in the Divine Father- 
hood. 



BROTHERHOOD 125 

Communism and socialism are not identical, al- 
though often classed together. The former is the 
more crude and impractical. It would abolish all 
private property. It insists that the community 
should own everything ; that there should be a 
common treasury into which all wealth should go, 
and that each person should draw from it, not 
according to what he has put in, but the same 
as every other person. Saint Simon's beautiful 
rule, " From all according to ability, to all accord- 
ing to need," is a far nobler ideal. 

Communism rests on the radical falsehood that 
all men are equal. All are not equal. The needs 
of one may be ten times more than those of an- 
other. Not all have common duties nor the same 
natural advantages. Communism is selfish. It is 
the expedient of a class. It is not large enough 
for humanity. It is a social state in the clouds. 
It might be worked in the interests of brotherhood, 
but is not inspired by brotherhood. It is a scheme 
by which those who have nothing hope to enter 
without labor into partnership with those who have 
an abundance. 

Anarchism is a blind and spasmodic protest 
against oppression. It is the awful falsehood by 
which those who know only that things are not 
right are deluded into thinking that two wrongs 
may succeed where one wrong fails. It is the denial 



126 THE AGE OF FAITH 

of brotherhood: the assertion that when one by 
natural gifts has risen into a conspicuous position, 
whatever his virtues, he can no longer lay claim to 
the simplest of rights and the holiest of privileges. 

Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, are errors 
which can never long satisfy thinking men. They 
are foes of brotherhood, since they are designed 
to benefit one class. Their horizons are narrow. 
They have advocates because the suffering of the 
many is so great that they must find some escape, 
and these mockeries of brotherhood sing a Siren's 
song. They fail because they merge the individ- 
ual in the mass, and because they stifle aspiration 
and endeavor. One plan puts the state in the place 
of the personal conscience ; another asserts a false 
doctrine of equality ; while the third in its agony 
for relief ignores God and man. 

Contrast these temporary and selfish expedients 
The Ideal with the ideal of Jesus. He taught that 

of Jesus. IIP 'IP ' ^ 1 1 t 

the whole family of man is a brotherhood. 
The individuality of each is sacred, and yet all are 
bound together by the chains of love. No one 
should adopt a plan or use a method for his own 
advancement which is hostile to the interests of any 
one of the others. The individual is not sacrificed 
but exalted. He finds his noblest privilege and 
power in voluntarily giving himself to the common 
welfare. The state is not a tyrant compelling obe- 



BROTHERHOOD 127 

dience, but the community of those who serve and 
help one another in the unity of a common love. 
There is no virtue in compulsory service. He who 
draws out of a common treasury no more than his 
neighbor deserves no credit ; he cannot do other- 
wise. But he who voluntarily surrenders his lib- 
erty, his ease, his wealth, because his brother has 
need, is virtuous. 

Brotherhood is larger than the various ideals 
after which men have reached in the past. It is 
the voluntary service of the many by the individual, 
and of the individual by the many, because both 
see in all men the same nature, the same rights, 
the same possible destiny. 

The realization of brotherhood is the superlative 
social ideal. It will banish all prejudices The su- 

r 1 •% 1 T 'Ti P^6™6 Social 

rounded on caste, or color, or race. It will ideal. 
make the employer anxious to do by his employee 
as he would be done by. It will teach the poor 
that the rich are as human and as needy as them- 
selves. Sometimes the responsibilities of wealth 
are heavier than the burdens of poverty ; but that 
is a hard lesson to learn. 

Where there is brotherhood, all forms of busi- 
ness, and all methods in business, which are hostile 
to the best interests of any will disappear. He 
who seeks to save my soul can never be willing to 
damn my body or mind. How can one who knows 



128 THE AGE OF FAITH 

his neighbor to be his brother consent to rise on the 
ruins of that brother's home, character, or welfare? 
Brotherhood will quickly settle the contest between 
capital and labor, for among brothers no one seeks 
to get the better of the other, but all cooperate to 
secure for one another that which is just and right. 
Brotherhood is the culmination of the teachings 
of Jesus concerning the relation of man to man. 
It is the most magnificent and comprehensive of 
social ideals. The stone is the kingdom which, cut 
out of the mountain without hands, will some time 
fill the earth. It is the holy city which will descend 
out of heaven from God. It is the glory sym- 
bolized by streets of gold, gates of j)earl, and the 
Lamb which is the Light, — for that is a prophecy 
of the time when even the medium of vision will be 
sacrificial love. 

Certain inferences follow this teaching of Jesus 
concerning brotherhood, which should be 

Inferences. 

carefully heeded, lest we make the mis- 
take of putting on this truth a burden heavier than 
it can bear. 

Brotherhood does imply equality in rights and 
in love, but not in ability or opportunity. The 
children in a household are equally entitled to the 
privileges of the home, but all are not equal in their 
strength either of body or of mind. In the sense 
in which it was used in France in the time of the 



BROTHERHOOD 129 

Revolution, " Equality " was a lie. There never 
has been any such equality. Every man has that 
which is best for him. One's strength of brawn 
may compensate for his lack of brain, but that 
does not make him the equal in brain power of his 
neighbor. Brotherhood is realized in the manifes- 
tation of love, not in domestic monotony. 

" Equality " would not be a blessing. It would 
stifle many of the finest human traits. We grow 
by opportunities of service. " Equality " would ban- 
ish the necessity of mutual helpfulness. And yet 
brothers have equal rights. Equality in rights is 
not identical with equality in natural endowments. 

Where brotherhood prevails, all seek one an- 
other's welfare and guard one another's rights. 
The interests of the family are common interests. 
If one member suffers, all suffer ; if one rejoices, 
all are made glad. Brotherhood implies that the 
race is a family. When this truth is appreciated, 
all that concerns the welfare of one man becomes 
the passion of all men. The color of the skin or 
the shape of the nose is a mere accident of birth, — 
essential manhood is not thereby affected. Bro- 
therhood sweeps away distinctions of rank, class, 
race, religion, and knows only that humanity is a 
solidarity, and that there is no possible service of 
God which does not begin in the service of man. 

When brotherhood prevails, weakness becomes 



130 THE AGE OF FAITH 

the common burden, and its service the common 
privilege. Among many animals, when one falls 
by the v^ay his fellows fall upon him and kill him. 
Where selfish theories of ethics prevail, weakness 
is almost equivalent to crime. In the human 
struggle the frail are left to perish like worn-out 
horses. But brotherhood puts all its resources at 
the command of the weak. The child in the house- 
hold is the centre of loving ministry among those 
who are strong. Dickens' story of Tiny Tim is a 
true expression of what fatherhood and brother- 
hood do for the weak. The poor little cripple was 
carried by his humble father, and all the family 
were made glad by being permitted to have a part 
in his happiness. The world is far from that ideal, 
but it has been uplifted. 

Selfishness asks, How small wages can I pay and 
get the work done ? Brotherhood asks, How large 
wages can I pay and yet keep the business in a 
healthy condition? 

Selfishness says. It is none of my affairs where 
my employees live or how they live : Brotherhood 
cannot be satisfied if any are in an environment 
unfavorable either to moral or physical health. 

Selfishness says. It is my business to look out for 
myself : Brotherhood says, It is my privilege to 
guard the interests and protect the welfare of my 
brethren. Selfishness says, It is no concern of 



BROTHERHOOD 131 

any one what I eat or driuk : Brotherhood says, 
If anything I eat or drink will cause my brother 
to stumble, I will change my habits and give up 
my luxuries. Selfishness says, I will always buy 
in the cheapest market : Brotherhood says, I will 
wear no garment which has been moist with the 
tears or blood of the oppressed. Selfishness says, 
I must look out for my own interests : Brother- 
hood says : We will bear one another's burdens, 
and rise or fall together. 

There is reason for gratitude that there is so 
much brotherhood ; that so many are actually liv- 
ing to minister and not to be ministered unto ; that 
the story of Tiny Tim and others like it waken 
such a deep and true response ; that there are re- 
formers, physicians, nurses, missionaries, ministers, 
and a host in humble as well as in public life, who 
serve the weak and carry the burdens of the poor 
before they seek ease or luxury for themselves. 

Where brotherhood prevails, laws will be made 
in the interests of all and not for the benefit of any 
one class. Divine principles are finding their way 
into legislative halls very slowly, but they are enter- 
ing even there. Most legislation has heretofore 
been in the interests of those who have power, but 
thought for the welfare of the many is at last pene- 
trating the minds of the average politician. Wel- 
fare, not vested interests, will be safeguarded when 



132 THE AGE OF FAITH 

the brotherhood of man is realized. I know that 
with many the mention of such political ideals 
seems to impugn the sanity of the one who offers 
them; but laws are only the will of *^ the people 
finding expression. When the people know that 
they are brothers, laws will no longer be framed to 
defeat brotherhood. The spectacle of a corporation 
ignoring the welfare of a thousand people that a 
few more dollars may be put into the pockets of 
men already rich is horrible barbarism ; but this 
may be found in every state in the civilized world. 
Such things are possible because some of those who 
have the power do not yet know themselves children 
of God and brothers of all men. Is the highest 
type of manhood seen in him who gladly sacrifices 
comfort and wealth in order that others may be 
saved to a better life ? Then the state, which is 
only many men working together, will some time 
make its laws, grant its franchises, adopt its policy, 
so as to promote the amelioration and salvation of 
all. When the redemptive mission of the state is 
suggested, not a few say, " We do not know what 
it means." They are right. They do not know 
what it means when applied to the state because 
they have had no experience of its working in their 
own lives. 

The prevalence of brotherhood will make the 
common welfare, the common service, and the com- 



BROTHERHOOD 133 

mon sacrifice for those wlio need, in short, the 
redemptive mission of the state, its most sacred 
prerogative. Now the state protects, then it will 
reform ; now it punishes, then it will seek to save. 
With the triumph of brotherhood the duty of the 
poor to the rich will be as evident and holy as the 
duty of the rich to the poor. The possession of 
wealth is not a crime. Which is the more to be 
pitied, he whose hunger is seldom satisfied, or he 
who has food enough but never dreams that wealth 
has responsibilities? Starvation is a bitter fact, 
but not so pitiful as moral blindness. The rich 
need sympathy as much as the poor. Those who 
might know the joy of helpfulness, but whose 
souls are as barren of loving deeds as a desert is 
barren of verdure, are surely to be pitied. There 
was deep philosophy in the assertion of Jesus that 
it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom which 
is composed of the humble ; for it is not easy for 
those who have much to be humble. Brotherhood 
is two-sided. The poor quite as much as the rich 
are in danger of forgetting the duty of love. Of 
the forms in which love should be manifested I 
have nothing to say at this time. It is enough 
now to insist that all can add something to the 
common welfare and happiness. The poor need 
not look far to find some who are poorer. Brother- 
liness is the sum of social virtues. 



134 THE AGE OF FAITH 

Optimism has relations to the individual, to the 
state, to the universe. It is possible only as indi- 
vidual, state, and universe are seen to be taken up 
and infolded within such love as is manifested in 
fatherhood. Fatherhood provides a basis for op- 
timism. All men are brothers because they have 
a common father. Some time they will realize that 
fatherhood, and then brotherhood will take posses- 
sion of all human relationships and use them for 
the welfare of all. 

Socialism would last as long as it was wisely ad- 
ministered : Communism would endure as long as 
the industrious were willing to bear the burdens of 
the idle : Anarchism will always be the refuge of the 
ignorant, the violent, and the insane. Only Brother- 
hood has in it the promise of the future, because it 
alone can reach man's common interests and rela- 
tions resulting from the fatherhood of God. The 
aspirations of the prophetic souls in all ages have 
been for the perfect state. Plato called his splen- 
did dream " The Republic ; " Lord Bacon called 
his " The New Atlantis ; " and Sir Thomas More 
in " Utopia " has tried to interpret the common 
and universal longing for social perfection. 

Confucius taught that the " Golden Age " could 
only be found by a return to ancient ideals and 
to the ways and teachings of the ancestors of the 
race ; Buddha, probably influenced by the earlier 



BROTHERHOOD 135 

"Hinduism out of which he came, found no hope 
for the individual or society except in the percep- 
tion that life is woe, and that Nirvana alone is 
peace ; but Jesus taught, more sublimely and yet 
more simply, that the goal of humanity is the reali- 
zation of brotherhood interpreted in the light of 
the common Fatherhood. The Ideal Republic, the 
New Atlantis, Utopia, the Golden Age, will take 
form among men when all have learned to think 
of the Infinite as Father, and of humanity as a 
brotherhood. In that new kingdom there will 
be but two laws. They will be these : — 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." 
" That ye love one another, even as I have loved you." 



VI 

SUFFERING AND SORROW 

Suffering, physical and mental, offers the 
nearest, most constant, and most perplexing of 
human problems, save one. It is ever present, ever 
insistent, and always mysterious. It has been the 
enigma of the ages. Philosophy quickly comes 
face to face with this stern fact. Literature has 
found in it a never-failing theme. The great tra- 
gedies, ancient and modern, have been largely 
studies in the realm of physical or moral pathology. 
The Book of Job is occupied with it : the stories 
of Prometheus and Tantalus, the magnificent 
realism of Lear and Hamlet, the sad yet victorious 
strains of " In Memoriam," and the subdued and 
melancholy sweetness of "Evangeline " are all varia- 
tions on the omnipresent and bewildering reality of 
suffering and sorrow. Every theology quickly be- 
comes a theodicy. When dealing with it, specula- 
tion is compelled to come down out of the clouds 
and try its hand at the hard facts of " human life's 
mystery." Pure idealism is very well for the 
young and prosperous who build palaces of dreams. 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 137 

When experience has done its work, those palaces 
are left in ruins, and the ruins themselves are cold 
and desolate. I should never attempt to write on 
this subject if I had nothing to offer except some 
new theory, which a too self-reliant imagination 
had told me would explain what the masters of 
literature, philosophy, and religion in all lands and 
times have found to be inexplicable. I shall only 
attempt to apply the fundamental principle of 
Christianity to " the common problem." 

One more introductory remark is necessary. 
Suffering and sorrow no refinements of thought 
can explain away. What is symbolized by these 
words is ever present ; and no amount of verbal 
jugglery can emancipate any one from what bruises 
the body and pierces the heart. We are dealing 
with facts. Using the word in the sense of things 
which are, the bitter experiences of men are as 
real as anything in the universe. 

Our problem has two factors : one relates to the 
body and is covered by the phrase " phy- j^^ p^^^ 
sical suffering ; " the other has relation to ^™' 
the emotional nature, or the heart, and is expressed 
by the word " sorrow." Physical suffering per- 
vades all orders of life. Nature " is red in tooth 
and claw ; " and the pain increases in intensity, if 
not in amount, according to the perfection of being. 
The prevalence of suffering in the animal world 



138 THE AGE OF FAITH 

is universal. The hurt when a little dog's leg is 
broken is as real as when a man receives the same 
injury. Pain follows men like their shadows. 
Man and beast alike are the children of travail. 
Suffering with both begins at birth. The pathos 
of a bird with a broken wing ; the great tears of a 
sad-eyed ox when cut by a stone ; the piteous moans 
of a tiger or panther when its foot is pierced 
by a thorn, are all but hints of the undertone in 
what may be called the minor music of creation. 
Moreover, the principle of murder seems to be 
universal. 

" Life evermore is fed by death, 

In earth and sea and sky ; 
And that a rose may breathe its breath 

Something- must die." 

A worm when stepped on squirms with pain ; a 
lion when wounded fills the forests with his groans. 
All orders of the animal world alike, if not equally, 
suffer, and alike exist by causing suffering. When 
we rise to man, the same remorseless experiences 
are observed. Pain begins at birth, and goes on 
with a never-ceasing succession of fevers, neural- 
gias, sciaticas, of toothache and headache, of lacer- 
ated limbs and torn nerves, until by the time they 
are old most men have begun to long for freedom 
and rest. Heaven is quite as attractive because 
of the hope that there will be no pain as no sin 



SUFFERING A:N^D SORROW 139 

there. How may the presence of physical suffer- 
ing be explained ? Is it necessary ? Why is it 
permitted ? At this door inquiry has knocked for 
unknown ages, but no hint of a satisfying answer 
has ever been received. 

Equally mysterious are the phenomena of sor- 
row. How far down the scale of being 

Sorrow. 

they extend, we do not know. That they 
are found among animals there can be no doubt. 
But the woes of humanity are sad enough ; we do 
not need to ask where or when they first appeared. 
Mrs. Browning, with her almost preternatural sen- 
sitiveness, has not exaggerated the melancholy 
reality : — 

" ' There is no God,' the foolish saith, 
But none, ' There is no sorrow,' 

And nature oft, the cry of faith, 
In bitter need wiQ borrow : 

Eyes, which the preacher could not school, 
By wayside graves are raised. 

And lips say, ' God be pitiful,' 
Who ne'er said, ' God be praised.' " ^ 

The gamut of sorrow is full of sobs. The grief 
of a child's heart, the disappointment of a lover, 
the anguish of a man who loses his fortune, the 
haunting and sometimes crazing loneliness of one 
who realizes that his days must be passed in sight 
of congenial companionship but without it, the 
^ The Cry of the Human. 



140 THE AGE OF FAITH 

isolation of blindness and deafness, the broken 
heart before the awful desolation of death, cannot 
be described, but they are met every day. She 
spoke at least a half truth who said that the history 
of the world could be written in tears and blood. 
One whose nature " attracts sorrow as mountains 
attract storms " must be a man of iron if he can 
long endure the strain. If Jesus actually pene- 
trated to the deeps of this mystery, as Christians 
believe, it is not surprising that His heart broke. 

What is the significance of sorrow ? Why need 
it be ? Is there not something wrong in the uni- 
verse, if such awful discipline is required to perfect 
character ? Is this simply a mystery, or is there 
some light in which we may see why it exists and 
what it means ? 

This problem has staggered men as long as the 
Buddhism history of thought has been written. 

andStoi- r\ > i 

cism. The Orientals have always been pecul- 

iarly sensitive to these melancholy phenomena. 
Buddhism, in particular, is an immense effort to 
escape from what appears to it to be strangling 
humanity, as serpents out of the deep strangled 
Laocoon and his sons. Buddhism has two grand 
divisions, Northern and Southern. One asserts 
that enlightenment is to be attained by the per- 
ception of " the nothingness of things ; " and the 
other, by the perception of "misery." Southern 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 141 

Buddhism is a continuous wail. Sir Edwin Ar- 
nold, in " The Light of Asia," has vivicjly condensed 
the utter despair of this faith in the phrase " And 
life is woe." How may I escape from misery ? is 
the bitter cry of one class of Buddhists. The 
doleful conclusion is that since misery is caused 
by existence, the only way out of suffering is cessa- 
tion of conscious being, and thus when the wheel 
of change has revolved long enough, they hope to 
realize Nirvana. 

Long pondering upon this problem has often 
ended in atheism. It is not possible to prove the 
non-existence of Deity, and I doubt if many ever 
became atheists as a result of honest thinking. 
The arguments, so far as they have weight, are all 
on the side of theism. But when a man faces the 
desolations of suffering and sorrow, he is simply 
dazed, and before them, unless his vision is clear 
and his intellect singularly sane, all his arguments 
for optimism go down, and he leaps to the conclu- 
sion that God cannot be, or sorrow would not be. 
This was the road traveled by the Stoics. Their 
philosophy of life was much like that of the Bud- 
dhists. In substance it was as follows : Man should 
neither love nor long for anything ; neither desire 
nor aspire, since all things are sure to end in dis- 
appointment. To the Stoics the supreme fact was 
disappointment. Their effort was directed toward 



142 THE AGE OF FAITH 

making that impossible. There is a deep truth in 
their writings, and they may well be studied ; but 
as an explanation of our most difficult problems, 
they are without value. 

A school of modern writers are practically athe- 
ModernPes- ^^^^ bccausc they are essentially pessi- 
Bimists. mists. Pessimism leads to atheism, and, 
conversely, atheism by quite as short a path leads 
to pessimism. In this class are Von Hartmann and 
Schopenhauer among philosophers, George Eliot 
and Zola among novelists, and Byron and Heine 
among poets. Indeed, most of the realistic school 
of poets and novelists, whose home is chiefly in 
France, but who have imitators in many lands, 
belong in this class. They sing of love and death 
as those who believe that death ought to be the 
end of love ; they analyze the griefs and sorrows 
of men and women with a morbid fascination 
which seems to indicate tliat they live with the 
dead ; they have no horizon ; they see neither the 
splendor of the sky nor the glory of the stars, and 
they have no senses fine enough to catch the 
music of the birds or the still more jubilant glad- 
ness of the many happy human hearts. 

The course of their argument, when they con- 
descend to argue, is something as follows : Suffer- 
ing and sorrow are universal. They have existed 
everywhere and as long as history has been written. 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 143 

Either God could prevent them and would not, 
and therefore He is neither beneficent nor loving ; 
or else He cannot prevent them, and therefore 
something is greater than God, and therefore there 
is no God. 

This argument is plausible, and at first seems 
convincing. If the subject could be settled by a 
syllogism, little more would need to be said. But 
problems like this are not so easy of solution. 
They contain too many factors. For instance : 
this attempt to meet the question implies the use 
of reason in the individual reasoning ; but reason 
in the individual necessitates the absolute or uni- 
versal reason. If there is the absolute reason, then 
the universe and history are ordered and adminis- 
tered in harmony with reason ; if the universe is 
thus ordered and administered, then suffering and 
sorrow can neither be meaningless nor final, since 
that would be the contradiction of reason. That 
cannot be possible in the universal or in the abso- 
lute which contradicts reason in man. This seems 
to me to dispose of the argument by syllogism, 
which from the presence of suffering in the uni- 
verse infers that there is no God. But whether 
the argument is answerable or not, there is no 
doubt that suffering and sorrow have often led to 
pessimism and atheism. 

I turn now to some of the attempted solutions 



144 THE AGE OF FAITH 

of this problem. Every thinker sooner or later 
Attem ted ^^^^^ his hand at this perennial puzzle. 
toe^pro'b-''^ Plato treated the subject practically, 
^^" not asking whence suffering and sorrow 

came, but how they should be borne. What is 
most required ? " Good counsel, I said, which, 
as at a game of dice, takes the measures which 
reason prescribes, according to the number of 
the dice ; and will not allow us, like children 
who have had a fall, to be keeping hold of the 
part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, 
when we should be accustoming the soul forth- 
with to apply a remedy, raising up that which is 
sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by 
a real cure." ^ 

The teaching of the Buddhists as to the causes 
of sorrow and suffering has already been mentioned. 
They are ultimately caused by existence, but the 
proximate cause is some act which has been per- 
formed in a preexistent state. The Buddhists be- 
lieve that perfection and release are possible only 
for those who obey certain laws. Disobedience 
in one sphere of existence necessitates numerous 
rebirths in other states, and therefore the suffer- 
ings of this present time are the result of miscon- 
duct in some previous period. 

^ "The Republic," Jowett's Dialogues of Plato, vol, ii. p. 
436. 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 145 

This doctrine has been condensed as follows : 
" Now the doctrine of transmigration, in either the 
Brahmanical or the Buddhist form, is not capable 
of disproof ; while it affords an explanation, quite 
complete to those who can believe it, of the appar- 
ent anomalies and wrongs in the distribution here 
of happiness and woe. A child, for instance, is 
blind ; this is owing to his eye-vanity, lust of the 
eye, in a former birth ; but he has also unusual 
powers of hearing ; this is because he loved, in a 
former birth, to listen to the preaching of the 
Law." ^ Of course in Buddhism this teaching is 
modified by the fact that that faith does not recog- 
nize the soul as having essential and individual 
existence. Its teaching, as I understand it, is as 
follows : There is no spirit, no soul, no principle 
of personality which survives death, but the moral 
character of the being who dies is transferred to a 
new creature. Here appears the doctrine of karma, 
vi^hich has been defined as follows : " This is the 
doctrine that, as soon as a sentient being (man, 
animal, or angel) dies, a new being is produced in 
a more or less painful and material state of exist- 
ence, according to the ' karma,' the desert or merit 
of the being who had died." ^ Sir Edwin Arnold 
has expressed the same theory, as follows : — 

1 Buddhism, Rhys Davids, p. 100. 
^ Ibid,, p. lOL 



146 THE AGE OF FAITH 

" This is the doctrine of the Karma. Learn ! 
Only when all the dross of sin is quit, 
Only when life dies like a white flame spent 
Death dies along with it. 

" Say not ' I am,' ' I was,' or ' I shall be,' 

Think not ye pass from house to house of flesh 
Like travelers who remember and forget. 
Ill-lodged or well-lodged. Fresh 

" Issues upon the Universe that sum 

Which is the lattermost of lives. It makes 
Its habitation as the worm spins silk 
And dwells therein." ^ 

Another method of meeting this problem has 
Christian reappeared in these days. It attempts 
cience. ^^ remove the difficulty by ignoring it. 
How do you account for a thunderstorm ? " There 
is no storm." But it rains, the lightnings flash, 
the thunder roars, and a tornado is tearing its way 
through the forests. " That is a mistake." How 
do you prove that ? Can you not trust your senses ? 
The reply is simple. " God is infinite, therefore 
there is no reality but God ; God is love, and 
therefore that which seems to be evil has no exist- 
ence, because evil and infinite love cannot coexist. 
A thunderstorm is evil, therefore there is no 
storm." This is an accurate representation of 
much current thinking. It proceeds : " What you 
1 Light of Asia, pp. 221, 222. 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 147 

call suffering and sorrow are only dreams ; they can- 
not be realities, cannot have existence, since they are 
evils, and there can be no evil since God is infinite 
goodness and God is all." This is a swift and sum- 
mary way of getting rid of a problem which has 
perplexed the profoundest thinkers of the world. If 
the premises are correct, the conclusions are inevi- 
table, but the premises are not axioms ; they are as- 
sumptions, and are contradicted in a thousand ways. 
If there is no thunderstorm, why seek to escape from 
the falling torrents ? If pain has no existence, then 
hunger and weariness have none ; and if they have 
not, why eat or sleep ? It is too late in the his- 
tory of the world to attempt to galvanize into life 
a philosophy which is effete even in India. There 
is a place for idealism, but pure idealism is the 
negation of the whole history of human thought. 
Science has been at work too long to make that 
possible. I have not mentioned this theory for 
the purpose of refuting it, but simply because it is 
one among many serious and earnest attempts to 
throw light on the problem of suffering. Its mes- 
sage is this, — neither suffering nor sorrow are reali- 
ties ; both are delusions. 

Calvinism has its interpretation of this world- 
old mystery, and it is a characteristic one. It is 
as follows : Suffering and sorrow are the supreme 
shadows of this mortal life. They can never be 



148 THE AGE OF FAITH 

evaded nor ignored. They follow from the cradle 
to the grave. Their only explanation is 

Calvinism. 

in the arbitrary decree of the Almighty. 
They are the result of man's sin. Milton's " Para- 
dise Lost" begins in true Calvinistic fashion : — 

" Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe." 

Sin is the cause of all suffering, and the causing or 
permitting of sin is to be found in the arbitrary 
will of the Almighty Sovereign. Why do men 
suffer and sorrow ? It is God's will ; and behind 
that no man can go. 

There is still another answer to this question, 

TheAbso- ^"^ ^* ^^^ been admirably stated by a 
ute Reason, ygj^g^j^j^ig tcachcr of thcology whose 

studies in his chosen department have given him 
a unique place among our thinkers.^ His reply, 
in brief, is as follows : The universe owes its ex- 
istence to "the absolute reason ;" all the laws by 
which the universe, either material or spiritual, is 
administered are the laws which reveal the essen- 
tial nature of the absolute reason. Suffering and 
sorrows are realities whose hurts cannot be exag- 
gerated; but their presence should not lead to 
atheism and pessimism, since there must be a 
reason for everything which exists in the universe 

^ Professor Samuel Harris, of Yale University. 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 149 

of the absolute reason. If that reason is not evi- 
dent to us, it is because of our lack of discern- 
ment. This answer differs from the Calvinistic 
hypothesis in that it does not rest everything 
on pure arbitrariness. " Men sorrow and suffer 
because God wills," says Calvinism. " No," replies 
this teacher, " but because when seen from the 
proper point of view, even sorrow and suffering 
will be found to be not only in harmony with but 
demanded by reason." All theories come at last 
to the recognition of the mystery which surrounds 
the whole subject. These attempts to solve this 
problem are worthy of serious attention. 

According to the first theory. Orientals, and 
those Occidentals who are fascinated by their 
thinking, find the solution of the difficulty in the 
assertion of the preexistence of the soul and its 
transmigration ; but that is only pushing the dark- 
ness a little farther back. It does not explain the 
presence of suffering in former spheres of existence. 

The second theory rests on the assumption that 
suffering and sorrow are impossible in a universe 
in which God is all and in all. Therefore we are 
all mistaken. We have imagined that we had 
burdens of pain and grief, but we were dreaming, 
and there is no load to be removed. Such credu- 
lity is alluring, but it has behind it neither faith 
nor reason. 



150 THE AGE OF FAITH 

The tliird theory blinks no difficulty ; it faces all 
hard facts with serious and calm aspect, and has 
but one answer : Yes, they are all here ; man is 
born to sorrow as the sparks to fly upward ; but 
investigation and speculation are alike vain. Pain 
and grief are in the purpose of the Almighty : He 
has decreed them, and their meaning has never 
been revealed. 

The fourth theory teaches that suffering and sor- 
row have existence in the universe by permission, 
if not by the ordination, of " the absolute reason ; " 
that, therefore, we must presume that reason under- 
lies them ; that they are not without a purpose of 
blessing, and that when the clearer day dawns, 
they will be found to have worked for good and 
only for good. 

Let us now inquire what light the Divine Fa- 
therhood has to shed upon this mysterious and 
awful theme, the study of which is the beginning 
of religion and not infrequently the end of faith ? 

In themselves and by themselves suffering and 
The Li ht of sorrow are evil and only evil. They should 
Fatherhood. .Qgygj. "[y^ considered by themselves alone, 
but rather in their relation to fhe object which 
they are intended to achieve. Nature is " red in 
tooth and claw," and yet all pain and sorrow are 
evidences of something far different from a mere 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 151 

principle of murder ; they show that each grada- 
tion of life serves the one which follows, and that 
in a certain sense there is a sacrificial tendency 
in the universe. This tendency may often seem 
imperfect, and almost without virtue, but at least 
it shows that what may be called the unconscious 
processes of nature are working in the interests of 
something higher than themselves. Thus Brown- 
ing's verdict may be literally true, — " All 's love, 
yet all 's law." The things which seem severest 
have sides of benefit, and in the end the benefit al- 
ways predominates. Fire is at once a blessing and 
a curse ; it warms and it destroys. Poison properly 
used alleviates pain and saves life ; improperly 
used it is an agent of death. So suffering and 
sorrow in themselves are destructive, but in the 
hands of Divine love they are agents of helpful- 
ness. In the last analysis it is found that they 
never get out of those hands. Pain and grief are 
not necessarily hostile to each other. Their mis- 
use alone proves either impotence or hate. But 
who shall tell where misuse begins and right use 
ends ? Who can see through life to " the far-off 
interest of tears ? " Few are calm enough to ap- 
preciate the way in which they are led. The voice 
of Job is the voice of all who find rest in the midst 
of the mystery. " Though He slay me, yet will I 
trust in Him." But even such confidence is wrong 



152 THE AGE OF FAITH 

unless it has a rational basis. To trust God with- 
out evidence of His love is neither good religion 
nor good ethics. It is easy enough to show that 
sorrow and suffering usually work toward welfare 
where they are not obstructed by human willful- 
ness ; but not many persons appreciate the evi- 
dence, for few have clearness of spiritual vision 
when their nerves are throbbing and tears falling. 
Those in mental or physical agony cannot find 
their way through an argument ; they can but trust 
or despair. 

Assuming, of course, the reasonableness of faith 
in the Divine Fatherhood, I will state a principle 
which properly used will serve as a guide in many 
dark places. It is always best to believe the best 
This world is a brighter and more beautiful v/orld, 
one in which even pain itself may be endurable, if 
behind human experience, and controlling physical 
forces, is everlasting and all-pervading Father- 
hood. Without that the universe would be infinite 
mockery, and human life irony ending in death, — 
a fitting climax for a stupendous and everlasting 
absurdity. The sooner everything disappears in 
nothingness, the better for every one concerned. 
But since the universe is in the hands of a Being 
in whom wisdom and love are blended, some time 
and somehow wrongs will be righted ; suffering 
and sorrow will be found to be harmonious with 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 153 

reason, and ever to have been the friends rather 
than the enemies of man. It is always best to 
believe the best. 

From the Divine Fatherhood certain conclusions 
follow with the force of demonstrations. 

Suffering and sorrow are never ordered or per- 
mitted as ends. They are the servants, ^ ^ . 

•^ ' Sutfenng 

never the masters of men. They are al- ar^neTer"" 
lowed to exist in the same way as fire and ^^^' 
poison. They never come unattended by oppor- 
tunities of service. The force that is locked in 
steam carries with it the possibility of explosions. 
Why did not God make non-explosive steam, or 
electricity which would not shock ? Such inquiries 
are idle. Explosions and shocks are evils, but 
electricity and steam are agents of world-wide civ- 
ilization. Evil is the result of a misuse of some- 
thing good in itself. Take out the power and 
you remove the ability to help as well as to hurt. 
Moreover the evil may be overruled for benefit. 
The explosion makes the builder and the engineer 
more careful ; the shock teaches the electrician that 
he should always insulate his wires. Nothing 
harmful to man can be permitted as an end in it- 
self. That truth inevitably follows the doctrine of 
the Divine Fatherhood. Any teaching that sug- 
gests or asserts that evil can forever endure ; that 
it has existence in and of itself; and that it is 



154 THE AGE OF FAITH 

immortal, violates the moral sense and contradicts 
the Christian revelation of God. The Father can- 
not ordain to separate and permanent existence 
anything which is a curse in itself and the end of 
which is pain. 

The converse is also true : sorrow and suffering 
are ordered and permitted only as a 
Meanrto^ mcaus to blcssiug which could not other- 
Biessmg. ^-^^ ^^ realized. I do not affirm that the 
relation between the event causing the sorrow and 
the results of good may always be traced ; for I 
know only too well that that is often impossible. 
But I do mean that if we interpret God by His 
Fatherhood, we must conclude that even out of direst 
calamities worthy compensation in time will always 
appear. A hundred are killed in an accident on a 
railway ; a thousand are drowned by a tidal wave ; 
ten thousand are swallowed by an earthquake, — 
does not our fine optimism fail before such appall- 
ing disasters? On the other hand, it is in the 
presence of such disasters that its truthfulness is 
most clearly manifest. If we seek for a reason for 
these calamities, none will be found ; but if men 
in accidents, in tidal waves and earthquakes, are 
children of God, and He is Omnipotent, then there 
must be some blessing within the shadow, even 
though as yet it is unseen ; for God can neither 
order nor permit anything the end of which is 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 155 

desolation and ruin. It is always best to believe 
the best. We must think that calamities are with- 
out meaning ; that they are evil and only evil, 
ordered by a malevolent being for a malevolent 
purpose ; or that God hates man and is trying to 
make him miserable ; or we must believe that 
they are permitted by love as a means for the 
realization of some beneficent purpose. The last 
hypothesis is rational. It reveals a prophetic sig- 
nificance in every pang of the groaning creation. 
Since the universe is administered by the Father, 
it follows that as winds, which might otherwise 
destroy, blow a ship toward her haven, so misery 
and agony in all orders of life will be overruled 
in the interests of a better time. 

" Yes, no doubt ; even evolution teaches that ; 
but what about the individual ? The cataclysm 
may leave a grander coast-line ; the explosion 
of a warship may lead to safer construction in 
the future ; the bubonic plague may afford rare 
opportunities for medical investigation ; but these 
are poor comforts for those who are caught and 
overwhelmed by the ruin." Evolution throws light 
on the future ; it has almost the force of a new 
gospel when it speaks of man and the universe, but 
it gives no hope to those who are crushed to make 
that future possible. Evolution as a cosmic law 
prophesies civilization and the kingdom of God; 



156 THE AGE OF FAITH 

but Fatherhood shows that love is beneath the 
infinitely small as well as the infinitely large ; that 
the lily as well as the constellation, the individual 
as well as the race, are included in a universal, 
immortal, and beneficent plan. 

The Divine Fatherhood helps toward a rational 
Does God and satisfactory understanding of our 

send Suffer- , 

ing? more austere experiences. Does God 

send suffering and sorrow? Surely not. Most 
if not all the calamities that men endure can be 
accounted for on other and more rational hypo- 
theses. One is bankrupt : he entered into a foolish 
partnership in business, and thus brought his calam- 
ity on himself. God did not send death to that 
child : his parents were careless and took him where 
disease prevailed. That woman is broken-hearted : 
did God break her heart ? She married an unprinci- 
pled man ; he is now in prison ; that tells the story. 
But there is a child who has inherited a hideous 
disease. The problem now becomes more compli- 
cated. What shall we say ? The disease came 
by way of heredity, not directly from God. We 
are sick because we are human ; we are disap- 
pointed because we make mistakes ; we sorrow for 
those who die ; but God does not send mistakes ; 
men die because they are men, and death knocks 
impartially at the palace and the cottage gate. 
" But you are not relieving the difficulty." I am 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 157 

not trying to do so at this time. I am only answer- 
ing the imputation that God ordains what we 
suffer. " But if He does not send it, He permits 
it." Yes, but permitting is very different from 
ordaining. " But why is it permitted ? " Even 
Fatherhood does not answer that question. In the 
darkness with thousands of other mysteries it must 
be left. One thing, however, is clear. This uni- 
verse is ordered so that ail suffering and all sorrow 
will work toward blessing unless the purpose is 
obstructed. God permits suffering, but before the 
trouble comes He ordains that out of it shall pro- 
ceed strength and welfare for those who seek truth 
and right. He causes none to die in order that 
others may be made sympathetic ; but He overrules 
such losses, and none are so tender and none so com- 
passionate as those who feel the touch of vanished 
hands, and who hear the sound of voices that are 
still. He does not send ruin to our business, but 
when failure comes He infolds us in His arms, 
and, by an exquisite yet indiscernible process, 
teaches us that many things are richer than gold 
and more enduring than bank stock. Emerson 
long ago said : " The oyster mends his broken shell 
with pearl," and, " Every man has occasion to thank 
his faults." We add. He may thank his misfor- 
tunes also. Perfection of character is the goal of 
evolution. All men, as well as Jesus, are " made 



158 THE AGE OF FAITH 

perfect througli suffering." Why some other 
method is not employed, we do not know ; but the 
explanation when discovered we know will be in 
harmony with reason and love because Fatherhood 
rules everywhere. The exile Dante learned about 
Hell and dreamed of Paradise far from his native 
Florence, with a disembodied spirit for his heavenly 
guide. In his blindness Milton learned that "they 
also serve who only stand and wait." From his 
prison John Bunyan saw the land of Beulah and 
the far-away spires of the Celestial City. Tenny- 
son was not taught to write " In Memoriam " by 
anything he learned at Oxford, — such music is 
beyond the reach of university dons. Like wine 
from the winepress it flowed out of his inmost soul 
when his heart was crushed by the death of his 
friend. Those who are most helpful, whose sym- 
pathy draws others as a magnet, whose " souls a 
holy strain repeat," are always those who have 
been made serene, sympathetic, victorious, by that 
which they have suffered. The Father sends no 
sorrow. We suffer because we are human ; but 
the Father, when He sees the cloud approaching, 
sows within it a seed of light, and that, if it is 
given opportunity, will surely grow. He does not 
prevent trouble, but He makes the fiercest storms 
the servants of the children whom He loves. 

Fatherhood brings into relief another truth. No 



SUFFERmG AND SORROW 159 

one is condemned to suffering in order that bless- 
ings may be realized by others. Even Nonecom- 

T • PI ^ 1 pelled to 

the most literalistic of the elder theo- suffer for 

the Benefit 

logians taught that the sufferings of our of others. 
Lord were voluntary. That innocence should be 
condemned to misery in order that foulness may go 
free ; that a pure woman should be made a scape- 
goat to take away the vice of a man, is a hideous 
imputation on the justice as well as the love of 
God. In a certain sense every one is free and in- 
dependent. I may sacrifice for another if I will ; 
but to compel me to do so would rob my action of 
virtue. A little child dies a horrible death, and 
the father asks : " Do you not think God is follow- 
ing me ? " What idea can that man have of God? 
Does any sane person believe that God sends pain, 
sickness, long agony, death, to an innocent little 
child in order that a willful and vicious man may 
be brought to his senses ? The idea is barbaric, 
yet it is not uncommon even in these days. No 
one is condemned to suffering for the benefit of 
another. The Almighty is not limited in His 
resources. My father would not ruin my brother 
to save me. If he could do so, I could no longer 
honor him as my father. Thus we dispose of a 
large class of superstitions which indicate that the 
belief that all suffering is penal is still widespread. 
Most of our griefs come by way of others. If 



160 THE AGE OF FAITH 

all sorrows were penal, it would mean that others 
were being punished in order that we might suffer ; 
that scarlet fever burns up a golden-haired child in 
order that a disreputable man may get his deserts ; 
that cholera devastates a communit}^ in order that 
two or three dozen reprobates may be made to 
understand that they cannot evade the Almighty. 
The hoUowness of such thoughts is exposed with- 
out argument. Justice condemns them ; and jus- 
tice is as real a factor in this world as fatherhood. 
The ultimate sources of suffering are hidden in 
" the deeps of God's divine ; " but those deeps 
contain nothing that is hostile to love. To assert 
that the innocent are made to suffer in order 
that the guilty may be adequately punished is to 
deny the sway not only of Fatherhood, but also 
of justice. The innocent do suffer — but either 
voluntarily, or because of the solidarity of the 
race ; and such suffering is always overruled for 
blessing. 

The facts of suffering and sorrow, which largely 
Satisfaction cousist of limitations, have one aspect 

in Achieve- i • i • i i i • i r^^^ 

menta which IS altogether bright. Iney not 

Compensa- ^ 

tion. only work for good in the years to come, 

but they make possible one of the sweetest of 
earthly joys ; viz., the sense of satisfaction in over- 
coming and achieving. The glory of being able to 
resist, of being delivered from despair when there 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 161 

seems no room for hope, is a pleasure worthy of 
great souls. To take from many the consciousness 
that they have faced unfortunate conditions " and 
laid them " would be to rob life of its crowning 
delight. Not many would be willing to give up 
the consciousness of victory won in order to get rid 
of the memory of sufferings endured. The prob- 
lem is no nearer solution, but a compensation is 
here disclosed. Suffering is the condition of the 
consciousness of victory over the most strenuous 
of opposing forces. If one who is in the midst of 
the process were asked if the gain could balance 
the cost, he would reply in the negative ; but if 
the same man were asked when the struggle had 
ended whether the joy of victory counterbalanced 
the suffering endured, he would respond in the 
affirmative. 

Fatherhood has provided that the compensations 
of sorrow shall more than balance its losses. 

The Divine Fatherhood makes it- easier to under- 
stand the sio^nificance of space and time „ 

"=• -■■ Space and 

when applied to suffering and sorrow. Jt^nt"our 
Great plans require many years. These ^'^^^^™- 
shadows reach as far as life, and seem to fill all 
time. Will they ever cease? This is a difficult 
question, and we must not be too positive with our 
answer. But one thing is sure, — both time and 
space are among the resources of Fatherhood. 



162 THE AGE OF FAITH 

Whenever and wherever suffering and sorrow are 
necessary to the perfection of character they will 
6e permitted, and wherever and whenever they 
cease to work toward what is best for man they will 
disappear. Nothing can be for the glory of God 
which does not promote the welfare of man. Sor- 
row and pain, in themselves alone, under no cir- 
cumstances can be pleasing to God. Suffering is 
a horror in the sight of a human being. A field 
of blood is brutal beyond description. It must be 
more hateful in the loving eyes of our Father. 
But fatherhood does not imply weakness, neither 
does it allow the blinking of facts. If any can be 
made to hate evil only by feeling its stings, they 
will not be blunted because they hurt ; for love 
dreads wrong more than pain. If this world of 
ours can be purified and made worthy to be called 
the kingdom of God only as woes are multiplied 
for a season, the discipline will go on. The inter- 
ests of the many are of more importance than the 
comfort of the few. We may have to suffer be- 
cause we are human, but never because we are 
victims on whom are laid retributions which belong 
to others. The cosmic order will not be chaiiged 
because any man is in the path of its progress ; 
but if one is crushed through no fault of his, some 
better thing will be provided. 

The idea of fatherhood applied to the universe 



SUFFERING AND SOUROW 163 

and the race is of surpassing glory. Progress 
among the worlds, as among men, is by evolution, 
but it is evolution which is always inspired and 
guided by love toward the welfare of the mass 
and the blessedness of the individual. The uni- 
verse is not a mere multiplicity and complexity 
of worlds in different stages of development ; in 
a true and glorious sense it is the Father's house, 
in which are many and splendid rooms. Human 
beings with aspiring hearts are not like grain 
poured by Fate into an infinite hopper where wheat 
and tares are ground together ; they are children 
of the same nature as their Father, with sover- 
eignty over their own wills ; able to deny Him or 
to conform to Him. He compels none ; He opens 
before all measureless opportunities of growth and 
of bliss, and says : In this universe suffering and 
sorrow must abide for a season. If it were not so, 
I would not permit them. As fast as men do 
justly and follow love, the darkness will be reduced, 
— but the time is not yet. If you cannot under- 
stand the reasons for my action, at least believe that 
your Father cannot allow any suffering longer than 
it is required to work blessing. 

The interpretation of sorrow and suffering which 
was given by Christ was new in the his- rpj^g rp ^ , 
tory of thought. Formerly they had ^"^ °^ '^^^^^' 
been regarded as evidence of the wrath of the gods. 



164 THE AGE OF FAITH 

The writer of the Hebrews said, " Whom the Lord 
loveth He chasteneth." Before this, pessimism was 
almost a necessity because, while there may have 
been faith in some future good, the means by 
which it was to be achieved were regarded with 
dread. Jesus justifies the means. That cannot be 
altogether evil whose sole object is the production 
of blessing, and suffering is intended only to pro- 
mote that end. This may be difficult to appre- 
ciate in the case of an individual, but not when the 
race is considered. What should be the attitude of 
the individual toward pain and grief? He should 
be careful to observe, first, that they result either 
directly or indirectly not from harmony with the 
will of God, but from violation of that will either 
in his own life, or in that of those with whom he 
is some way related. If God has no pleasure in 
these things in themselves, if they are hateful to 
Him as to us, then in proportion as we put our- 
selves in harmony with the divine order, what has 
afflicted will disappear. If all pain does not go, it 
will at least be made subordinate to the higher 
joys. We shall still hunger and thirst ; our sight 
will still fail and our hair turn gray ; fever and 
malaria may not be disarmed of their power, but 
our spirits will be so harmonized with the Divine 
that our troubles will seem not worthy to be com- 



SUFFERING AND SORROW 1G5 

pared with the glory which is being revealed in us. 
The effort of the individual should be directed 
toward perfect harmony of will and wish with all 
that can be ascertained of the Divine order. The 
result will be the gradual disappearance from the 
human condition of all that causes sorrow or results 
in suffering. Then sorrow and sighing will flee 
away. 

I have thus tried to apply the principle, Inter- 
pret God by his Fatherhood, to the problem of 
sorrow and suffering. No solution has been of- 
fered; for that we must wait for clearer light. 
Perhaps we could not comprehend the solution if 
it were before us, but this at least we know : since 
God is Father, and since the Father is almighty, 
nothing can long remain which will not in the end 
promote the welfare and perfection of individuals 
and the race. Suffering and sorrow are mysteries, 
but they are full of blessing for all who will do 
right and trust in the eternal love. 

And so I conclude : When disappointment blasts 
hope and the future seems dark — interpret God 
by His Fatherhood ; when sickness interrupts 
service and achievement — interpret God by his 
Fatherhood ; when pain fills existence with agony 
— interpret God by his Fatherhood ; when death 
invades your home and takes your nearest and 



166 THE AGE OF FAITH 

dearest — interj^ret God by his Fatherhood ; "in 
time, in eternity, in the great judgment-day," and 
forever — interpret God by his Fatherhood. 

"I know not what the future hath 
Of marvel or surprise, 
Assured alone that life and death 
His mercy underlies." 



VII 

SIN 

One problem is darker and more mysterious 
than that of suffering and sorrow. It is the pre- 
sence of moral evil and sin in the universe. This 
has been an ever-recurring riddle, and one which 
will probably never be satisfactorily solved. When 
speculation and investigation have done their ut- 
most, it still appears as if it ought to have been 
impossible for man to violate the harmony of which 
he is so conspicuous a part. About this subject 
we feel more than we think. But many things 
have a basis in reason which for the moment seem 
to be either the work of chance or of some malign 
though unseen power. We must begin our study 
with facts and draw our inferences from them. 

Let us be careful of our definitions. Many acts 
in popular and even theological language 

What is Sin ? 

are called sin which have in them no ele- 
ment of responsibility and consequently none of 
guilt. What is sin? It is the conscious choice 
of evil instead of good, or of a lesser instead of a 
greater good; it is the refusal on the part of 



168 TPIE AGE OF FAITH 

a moral agent to choose what he believes to be right. 
There was never a better definition of sin than that 
of the Apostle James : '' Therefore to him that 
knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is 
sin." Nothing is sin which is not the result of the 
conscious choice on the part of one who is free to 
choose differently. That is not sin which neces- 
sarily follows ignorance or compulsion. If a person 
is compelled to any course of action, the blame 
rests with the one who forces and not with the one 
who would prefer to act differently. Sin is willful 
transgression of the law ; or, as it is expressed in 
the Revised Version, it is lawlessness ; that is, liv- 
ing in a world of law and order as if there were 
neither. 

The next question concerns the reality of sin. 
However it may be accounted for, nothing 
Reality? jg jjjqj,q uuivcrsal than this glaring and 
appalling fact. Its record is written on every page 
of history ; it is presumed in the sacred books of 
all the religions of the world ; it is witnessed to by 
conscience and consciousness ; its reality is never 
questioned except by those who would like to ex- 
plain away things which are disagreeable and which 
annoy. Where or when the first attempt was made 
to prove the unreality of moral evil, I do not know, 
but so far as I have been able to learn, it was a 
part of the disenchantment which came to the phi- 



Sm 169 

losophers of India after the close of the first great 
and splendid era in Indian thought and life. The 
history of India, Dr. Matheson has truly called 
" a Pilo'rim's Proo'ress." In the childhood of that 
race, life and literature were surpassingly beautiful. 
The early writers, like those who composed the 
Vedic Hymns, were optimists. How that age of 
hope passed into one of hopelessness and despair 
it would be difficult to trace ; but the next period 
shows us the Indian thinkers grappling with sin, 
sorrow, and suffering. India has offered the world 
two solutions of these problems. The first is that 
of the Hindu faith, which finds no way out of the 
labyrinth except by denying its reality. What we 
call sin, suffering, sorrow, are declared to have no 
existence. The Hindu tries to escape from them 
by affirming their non-existence. The perception 
of the nothingness of things is said to be supreme 
wisdom. These teachings are the burden of most 
of the Hindu philosophy even to the present time. 
But many centuries ago a protest was made against 
the attempt to deny the witness of universal expe- 
rience. That protest resulted in a more vital and 
far more generally accepted religion, namely. Bud- 
dhism. The contention of the Buddhists is that 
sin, sorrow, suffering, are realities, but that the 
only way to escape from their sting is for one who 
suffers to seek to alleviate the suffering of others ; 



170 THE AGE OF FAITH 

thus he will lose the consciousness of his own 
hurt. That the attempt to ignore the reality of 
sin had its origin as I have indicated may be 
uncertain, but there can be little doubt that the 
sources of this philosophy of negation in our time 
are to be found in India. In forms variously di- 
luted it has percolated into Europe, and even found 
its way to America. A large and perhaps a growing 
number of persons, whose earnestness is beyond 
question, are trying to escape from an exceedingly 
perplexing problem by the easy path of denial. 
Nothing could be more futile. Whatever the gene- 
sis, or ethical quality, of what we call sin, there 
can be no doubt in the minds of any who do not 
juggle with words of its reality and universality. 

It is recognized in the scientific teachings of our 
The Place of time. Many masters of physical science 

Sin in Evo- i p • i 

lution. are the sternest preachers of judgment 

against all who do wrong. One says the power 
against which we are pitted in the game of life 
*' never overlooks a mistake or makes the slightest 
allowance for ignorance." ^ The philosophy of 
evolution has as clear a recognition of sin as me- 
diaeval Calvinism, which was not a mere theory of 
narrow-minded dogmatists, but a true science based 
on a profound, if not always accurate, study of 
human experience. Evolution teaches that as man 

^ Professor Huxley, Lay Sermons, p. 32. 



SIN 171 

advances, he rises out of the animal condition into 
the consciousness that he is a spirit. In the former 
state, his actions were determined by his environ- 
ment ; but when he became a spirit, he entered into 
a realm of freedom. If a free man chooses to live 
according to the desires of the flesh, he violates the 
highest law of his being. That choice of sensual 
things by a free spirit evolution regards as worthy 
of blame. Theologically speaking, it is sin. 

Literature may not be an infallible teacher, but 
it is an infallible witness concerning the The witness 
common faith of humanity. The sub- ture. 
jects of the great tragedies, from the earliest to 
the latest times, have all revolved around the prob- 
lems of suffering, sorrow, and sin. These problems 
were the constant study of ^schylus, Goethe, 
and Shakespeare. However much our pity may 
go out for Marguerite and Faust, there can be no- 
thing but detestation for Mephistopheles, who is 
clearly Goethe's personification of the principle 
of evil in the world. Hamlet is Shakespeare's 
illustration of human limitation and suffering, 
while Macbeth and Lear are magnificent and real- 
istic, yet in no wise exaggerated, delineations of 
sin and judgment. 

Turning from literature to law we find that the 
legal systems of the world rest upon two facts — 
man's freedom, and his misuse of that freedom. 



172 THE AGE OF FAITH 

Law recognizes freedom, and penalty points toward 
The Witness freedom abused, which is sin. Ever}'^ law 

of Legal 

Systems. silently yet unimpeachably affirms that 
man is created with the power of choice, — con- 
sequently with ability to choose either the evil or 
the good ; and every provision for punishment and 
every punishment inflicted have been, and are, 
witnesses to the common faith that those who might 
have been virtuous and upright have instead chosen 
to do wrong. 

Conscience confirms the evidence of the other 
TheTesti- witucsscs to this uuivcrsal and baleful 

mony of -, . « . 

Conscience, reality. Ihc condemnations oi conscience 
are too near and vivid to be explained away. What- 
ever our ethical philosophy may be, those who 
choose to do wrong are judged by a court which 
sits within their own breasts, whose decision can 
be neither denied nor evaded. Whether the con- 
ception of Justice in art, with her scales nicely 
balanced and her eyes blindfolded, is correct or 
not, there is no doubt that it is a true representa- 
tion of conscience. Absolutely impartial, perfectly 
remorseless, it metes out approval to those who 
choose to do right and condemnation to those who 
choose to do wrong. 

All the religions of the world recognize the sin- 
fulness of man. Even the Hindus, whose teachers 
tell us that there is no sin, teach the doctrine of 



SIN 173 

Transmigration, or that the result of wrong-doing 
in this world is condemnation to endless witness of 

1 r nc ' ' ^ n c ' Ethuic Re- 

cycles of suiiering m lower forms of exist- iigions. 
ence. A common Hindu proverb runs as follows : 
"A hundred good works are lost upon the wicked." 
The teaching of Zoroaster is, if possible, more 
emphatic than that of Christianity. The problem 
of sin was so appalling to him that he found no 
solution for it except in a dualistic system of the 
universe which ascribes the creation of the world 
to two powers, one good and one bad — Ormuzd 
the god of light and Ahriman the god of dark- 
ness. I once asked a Buddhist priest in Japan in 
regard to the teaching of his religion concerning 
sin. He replied : " We do not believe that it has 
any relation to a being like the one whom you call 
the Deity. We think that every man makes his 
own destiny. If he chooses to do wrong, he 
weaves a web of suffering around himself, as a silk- 
worm weaves its cocoon." Of the Jewish and the 
Christian faiths there is no need to speak. The 
central doctrine of Christianity is that God reveals 
HimseK in sacrifice to save his children from their 
sins. In some form or other all nations in all ages 
have believed in the reality and the universality of 
sin. The only possible way of escape from this 
fact, even in thought, is the path which has been 
taken by those who assert that suffering, sorrow, 



174 THE AGE OF FAITH 

and sin cannot have existence in a universe which 
lives and moves and has its being in God. But 
speculation cannot long ignore science. If experi- 
ences like these could be escaped by a simple pro- 
cess of denial, who would not rejoice ? But facts 
are independent of all attempts at explanation. 
In spite of our fine philosophies, men continue to 
choose things which are evil, and universally 
and remorselessly receive their proper condem- 
nation. Inability to understand should never lead 
one to the mistake of attempting to ignore. After 
speculation is discouraged and exhausted, weari- 
ness and hunger continue, tears fall, age deepens 
its furrows, death approaches with impartial tread ; 
and those who choose to do well are blessed, while 
those who choose to do evil reap what they have 
sown. Not quickly will the law, " Whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap," disappear 
from the experience of man, or from the statutes 
of the universe. 

I now turn to some of the expedients to which 
Attempts to thinker s have resorted in their attempts 

account for . 

Sin. to account for sin. I hey are many, and 

indicate long and honest thought upon this most 
mysterious of problems. 

Some believe that sin on the earth is the re- 
sult of violation of the moral law in a preexistent 
state. This doctrine of preexistence has had a 



STN 175 

strange fascination, especially for Oriental people, 
but not for them alone. It is found The Theory 
in Plato ; it reappears m Wordsworth, existence. 
whose " Ode to Immortality " is an attempt to 
prove the immortality of the soul from its preexist- 
ence. Why is there sin in this world? It has 
come from some other world. It is neither the 
penalty for previous wrong-doing, nor what may be 
called the baleful remnants of a struggle still in- 
complete. This theory simply pushes the difficulty 
one stage further back. How shall we account 
for sin in that other world from which the good, 
to adapt Wordsworth's figure, has come like trail- 
ing clouds of glory, and the evil like trailing 
clouds of gloom ? 

Another theory is that sin is inherited. The Cal- 
vinistic doctrine of original sin teaches 

Heredity. 

that the first man sinned, and that not 
only his weakness but his guilt have been trans- 
mitted from generation to generation. Not many 
in these times believe in transmitted guilt. We 
are told that what the doctrine really means is that 
a weakened and depraved nature is transmitted ; 
but that was not the older Calvinism, which boldly 
insisted that all men sinned in Adam, and there- 
fore that all were guilty in him. Such crude ideas 
probably satisfied the exigencies of the current 
logic, but they have been condemned by the moral 



176 THE AGE OF FAITH 

sense of most of those who in later times have 
studied this subject. That weakness may be in- 
herited is all too evident ; but inherited weakness 
is a palliation of guilt ; it never adds to its con- 
demnation. 

Others think that what is called sin is merely 
The Result ignoraucc ; that with brighter light and 

of Igno- •111* 

ranee. trucr knowledge all men will do right. 

The basis of this fine optimism is an exaggeration 
of the doctrine of the Divine Immanence. God is 
in every man, and therefore, it is concluded, no 
man can do evil after he knows what the right is. 
But how any man can be ignorant for a single mo- 
ment of what the right is and still be the abode 
of God presents another problem. Much wrong- 
doing is, no doubt, the result of ignorance. Many 
are punished for what, if they had known better, 
they would never have dreamed of doing. In the 
eye of fallible human law, they must be regarded 
as worthy of penalty, but in the eye of the just and 
loving law of God, they are not sinners. Where 
ignorance abounds, sin does not abound. This 
theory of ignorance overlooks the fact that those 
who have had the best opportunities for knowledge, 
who have lived in the full light of civilization and 
culture, who have had every possible privilege of 
growth, have often been the worst sinners. It 
would be easy to give examples of those who have 



SIN 177 

been trained in the schools, who have been sur- 
rounded by religious influences from their youth 
up, who have been learned in all that science and 
history could teach them, who have had large 
and varied experience, but who have deliberately 
chosen to pamper their animal natures and live like 
beasts rather than like pure spirits. What shall 
be said of one who, to gratify ambition, leaves a 
wake of blood, broken hearts, and desolation around 
half the world ? What shall be said of those men 
of the very finest literary and artistic culture in 
the most advanced civilization that the world has 
known, whose personal history is too foul to be 
written? Ignorance will explain and palliate much 
misdoing, but it does not account for the selfish- 
ness, the crime, the cruelty, the perfidy, the sen- 
suality of those who in intelligence and education 
have led their fellow men, but who in vice and 
crime have shocked the world. 

Others believe that sin is imperfect development ; 
that the race is not yet far enough away ^ ,. ^ 
from the animal condition for men to be Jj^^eSp-* 
able to choose the good; that what is ^^^^' 
commonly called sin in reality is only imperfection. 
This also is a charitable and highly optimistic 
hypothesis, and in it there is much truth. Those 
who do wrong from weakness are not sinners. 
There is no quality of guilt in their actions. He 



178 THE AGE OF FAITH 

who has no feet is not blameworthy for not walk- 
ing. He who has no eyes is not guilty because he 
does not see. That is a hideous and awful travesty 
on justice which attaches to weakness the quality 
of guilt. What puts the ethics of materialism 
below the most horrible forms of mediaeval theology 
is the fact that the former makes no allowance for 
weakness. In materialistic ethics ignorance and 
mistake are treated in the same way as intentional 
violations of law. The older theology preached 
judgment only for those who by their own choice 
became partners in the sin of their first parent. 
There is no guilt in weakness, but weakness may 
make it easier to commit sin. Therefore since God 
is good, and, as Browning puts it, " All 's love and 
all's law," we must believe that even weakness 
palliates rather than increases condemnation. 

Others insist, and to this speculation we have al- 
ready partially referred, that there is no 
Nightmare, g^^j^ thing as siu ; that the earthly life of 
man is only a dream ; that we think we are sinning 
and suffering when we are only in a prolonged hal- 
lucination. This hypothesis is purely imaginary. 
Moreover, if sin and suffering are only like the 
figures seen in sleep, then everything good as well 
as everything bad is a dream, and civilization, pro- 
gress, literature, art, the achievements of science, 
love, aspiration, and beneficence are also parts of 



SIN 179 

one long, bewildering dream. Few thoughtful 
people will give much heed to such puerile specu- 
lations. They do not relieve the difficulty. If 
suffering and sin are dreams, then how shall we 
account for the fact that those who are best fitted 
for splendid activity and growth are condemned to 
threescore and ten years of hideous and uninter- 
rupted nightmare? 

Another attempt to solve this difficulty is more 
harmonious with reason and the moral sin in the 

. Best Moral 

sense. It is somewhat as follows : it system. 
was a necessity that there should be some order 
in the universe. The Almighty had before his 
mind an infinite series of systems from which He 
could choose. Since He is God and good, He must 
choose that which is best. The one which is best, 
because it is the one chosen, provides for the free- 
dom of the individual. If men are free, then of 
course they must be able to choose, and able, there- 
fore, to make a wrong choice as well as a right 
choice. The best moral system, therefore, has in it 
the possibility of wrong-doing. This is something 
very different from the necessity of wrong-doing. 
If there is the possibility of virtue, there must be 
the possibility of vice. If there is the possibility 
of holiness, there must also be the possibility of 
wickedness. The moral order of the world does 
not require that any should violate its harmony, but 



180 THE AGE OF FAITH 

it makes it possible for all to do so. Beneath this 
theory is a glorious truth. Men might grow as 
trees grow, without moral quality, but if they are 
to be developed into the life of God, they must 
have the freedom of God. A creature of putty 
may be moulded into any conceivable form, but a 
man with a will must choose for himself what the 
plan of his life shall be. Power of choice means 
possible strength of character and dignity of man- 
hood. Without that power, strength and dignity 
would go. This has been a favorite doctrine with 
many teachers. So far as an intellectual process 
alone can solve problems, it solves them. But the 
difficulty lies too deep for mere argument. With 
all our theories, however fine and beautiful they 
may be, the human heart still revolts at the pre- 
sence of evil and the possibility of sin. We can- 
not understand why it should have been permitted. 
The old question continually returns : If God is 
good, why did He not make a world in which it 
would be impossible for any to violate the law 
of his being, and to cause agony and desolation 
wherever his influence may extend ? 

What light does the Divine Fatherhood throw 

upon this subject ? It does not illumine 

and Sin. ^^l the dark places. It does not remove 

all the mystery. It may be called rather an aid to 

faith than a solution of the problem. Why any 



SIN ISl 

choose to do wrong is now, as it ever has been, a 
mystery. No ray of light has yet penetrated this 
darkness, and, apparently, we are no nearer an ex- 
planation than when bewildered inquiry first faced 
this subject. Those who profess to explain the 
universal problems may well be distrusted. There 
are quacks in philosophy as well as in medicine. 
The new thinker may have a new programme of 
the universe, but when he is a little older and wiser 
he will find that so far as it is new it is, probably, 
only a variation on some older thought. 

The Fatherhood of God, as nothing else, shows 
the enormity of sin. It furnishes a background 
against which the true nature of guilt appears. 
The Divine Fatherhood necessitates the inference 
that goodness pervades the universe and directs all 
the affairs of the children of men ; that the moral 
law is but the manifestation of a beneficent plan ; 
that all purposes for humanity tend toward bless- 
ing ; that the goal of history is love. Therefore he 
who chooses anything less than the best violates 
love. The phrase. Interpret God by His Father- 
hood, implies that the same affection which a noble 
and devoted father has for his child, the Being who 
pervades the universe has for all men. Wrong- 
doing is a violation of that love. In order fully to 
appreciate this truth, we must remember that God 
lives in us while He also transcends us. My father 



182 THE AGE OF FAITH 

lives in me, and yet my father and I are separate 
beings. The vine and the branch are one, and yet 
the vine is not the branch and the branch is not 
the vine. God dwells in men. The universal love 
is in our common humanity. It is not something 
which comes, when called, from beyond the stars, 
but it is the very life of our life and soul of our 
soul. The essence of our being is love which is 
manifested in fatherhood. We were made for 
perfect love. That love can be satisfied only with 
conformity to the true and the right. I have the 
power to put myself in harmony with that which 
is best for myself, which is also best for all men, 
and which pervades the universe. If I choose to 
violate my essential being, I am not only injuring 
myself, but I am also violating that which is uni- 
versal and eternal. The best for myself is the 
best for the universe. If the effect of a wrong 
choice could be borne by the individual alone, the 
results would be less calamitous ; but we are chil- 
dren, and we have relation to Him from whom 
we come. We may live in the enjoyment of the 
privileges of sonship, or we may refuse those priv- 
ileges. That is the prerogative of freedom. He 
who lives selfishly cuts himself off from the uni- 
versal love. Such misuse of power which might 
promote perfection and insure harmony is an ap- 
palling act of wrong. Is this an obscure way of 



Sm 183 

putting this truth ? Then let me return to a more 
literalistic form of expression. As our parents 
love us, so the infinite Father looks down upon His 
children with affection which can only be dimly 
hinted at through human relations. In them we see 
a little of the eternal Fatherhood. Every act of 
wrong is done in the sight of One who loves with 
true parental love, and whose heart is hurt when 
He sees His children throwing away their oppor- 
tunities, ignoring their ancestry, and violating the 
dictates of their moral sense. When this fact is 
realized, sin is seen to be the most awful enormity. 
To choose deliberately that which I know is not 
best for me, that which makes the attainment of 
worthy ideals impossible, this is the folly of sin. 
Its results reach beyond the wrong-doer and send 
thrills of pain through the creation, as the shame 
of a child grieves and breaks the heart of his 
father. In the light of fatherhood, it is an awful 
thing to be a sinner. 

Since fatherhood is at the heart of things, it 
follows that so fast and so far as is con- ^ , 

So far as 

sistent with the moral order of the uni- ^^ff£^® ?i" 

will be pre- 

verse, so fast and so far as is consistent ^®°*^^- 
with the freedom of man, — which is essential to 
his manhood, — sin will be prevented. But this is 
not an easy matter. Every father would gladly 
shield his children from evil, but if he is wise, he 



184 THE AGE OF FAITH 

will remember that strength comes from struggle. 
If he locks his children in the sweet seclusion of 
home, he will deprive them of the possibility of that 
growth which comes with expanding horizons, and 
from antagonisms and achievements in the world. 
Protection at the expense of possible strength is 
an evidence of weakness, not of love. Man might 
have been born into a world in which there would 
have been no temptation, or in which yielding to 
temptation might have been made impossible ; but 
that would have deprived him of the strength which 
comes from resistance. Without will and ability 
to use it he would no longer be in the Divine image. 
As quickly as possible sin will be prevented. That 
must be, since God is good, and can do all things. 
But for Him to deal with a human being as if he 
were a thing would not be an evidence of love ; for 
Him to treat a man who has intelligence and will 
as if he were an idiot would show neither wisdom 
nor goodness. 

Interpreting God by His Fatherhood, we have 
What about the assuraucc that while freedom, which 

the Wrong- 
doer? is essential to those who are in the image 

of God, necessitates the possibility of wrong choice, 

all the resources of infinite and everlasting love 

will be at the service of those who are weak and 

may fall, or who have fallen, not simply to save 

them from the consequences of their wrong-doing, 



SIN 185 

but, by those consequences, to advance them toward 
loftier heights of character and achievement. This 
subject is treated more at length in a later chapter. 
It is enough now to say that no one by any act of 
his own can put himself beyond the reach of the 
Fatherhood of God. If he takes the wings of the 
morning and goes to the uttermost parts of the sea, 
he will find his Father there ; if he makes his bed 
in the depths of the underworld, he will find that 
his Father is there before him with ministry and 
mercy. This is the distinctive and glorious teach- 
ing of the Christian revelation. The son may 
leave his home, but loving hearts will follow him ; 
he may forget his father, but his father will never 
forget him. Science teaches that nature never 
overlooks a mistake, and makes no allowance for 
ignorance ; but fatherhood teaches that when the 
son comes to himself and longs for the old life 
and the old love, whatever deeps of degradation 
he may have sounded, whatever the enormity of 
his vice or crime, if he repents, he will find wait- 
ing for him the new robe and the kiss of love. 
This faith makes optimism possible. Many who 
have seemed to be noble and full of promise have 
fallen to the blackest depths ; with every oppor- 
tunity of spiritual growth, they have chosen the 
companionship of the vilest. It is enough to 
break one's heart to see how the best-laid plans 



186 THE AGE OF FAITH 

occasionally go awry. It sometimes seems as if 
hate rather than love must be at the heart of 
things. But when such thoughts are laid aside, 
and all purposes and discipline are interpreted in 
the light of fatherhood ; when it is remembered 
that no one can ever get beyond the reach of fa- 
therly love, our problem is still unsolved, but all is 
not dark. For a time one may seem to sever him- 
self from God, but nothing can destroy the regard 
and ministry of his Father for him. The darkness 
is inexplicable, but in its midst is a pathway of 
light. 

The fact of the Divine Fatherhood shows that, 
whatever may be beyond the earth, — 

Conse- J »j ' 

s?n D?8c? ^"^ ^\\)a. that we have nothing to do at 

p nary. ^j^-^ ^- jjj^^ g^ ^^^ ^^ ^^ kuOW, the COUSC- 

quences of sin, while they are always inexorably 
retributive, are also primarily for purposes of 
discipline and never are expressive of vengeance. 
" He punishes but to save." The Scripture which 
says, " Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the 
Lord," must be interpreted in the light of father- 
hood. Whatever that text may mean, it can be 
nothing at enmity with the essential nature of 
God. How He repays is not for us to understand. 
But we know that He cannot violate the eternal 
purpose of love, which is that somehow and some 
time all His children shall reach the fullness of the 
stature of Christ. 



SIN 187 

The fact of retribution is as evident as that of 
wrong-doing. Wherever there is sin there is suffer- 
ing. The one lasts at least as long as the other; 
whether it lasts longer, we do not know. At 
this point we can only draw inferences. Some 
things, however, are perfectly clear. No true fa- 
ther ever allows his children to suffer for the sake 
of the suffering. Whatever the act, the penalty 
is only in order that it may not be repeated. He 
would be no true father who could take pleasure 
in causing pain for the sake of " getting even " 
with his child who had done wrong. *' As I live, 
saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of 
the wicked." Love may be severer even than a 
court of justice. It will surely consider the inter- 
ests of all in the household, and not simply the 
whim of the one who has done wrong. A guilty 
child will not be allowed in a home where his pre- 
sence would contaminate. He will be permitted 
to experience the full retribution which his course 
may bring upon him, but that will be primarily in 
order that he may be taught its enormity, and 
made to see that holiness results in blessing, and 
that always and everywhere wrong-doing ends in 
misery. The Fatherhood of God does not in the 
least limit the sweep and the force of the law of 
retribution, but it shows that its nature is never 
vindictive, but always disciplinary. 



188 THE AGE OF FAITH 

" Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and 
scourge th every son whom He receiveth." 

The Divine Fatherhood offers the strongest of 
The all motives for righteousness, since acts 

Strongest . nc - 

Motive for of wronsT-domo" not only cause suiierins: 

Righteous- & & ^ J & 

ness. ^Q ourselves, but in some real and mys- 

terious sense send thrills of sorrow throughout the 
universe. God is everywhere. We cannot escape 
His presence. He besets us behind and before. 
" The immanence of God " shows that every sin 
against man is a sin against God. When the Prod- 
igal returned, he said : " I have sinned against 
heaven and in thy sight." This experience de- 
veloped within him a realization of the relations of 
his life. He had sinned against himself ; but still 
more he had sinned against heaven and against the 
universe ; and still more he had sinned in the sight 
of the one who loved him better than he loved 
himself. Instead of opening the gates to license, 
this teaching offers the strongest of all motives 
to righteousness because it shows that wrong-doing 
outrages love, and is a cause of infinite sorrow. 
Fatherhood reveals not only the nature of wrong- 
doing, but also its essential and inevitable con- 
sequences. It brings into new prominence the fact 
of the solidarity of the race. It shows that the act 
of one has an influence on all, and that all are 
partners in the conduct of the individual. He can 



( 



SIN 189 

hardly be human who shuts his eyes to truths like 
these. 

Such considerations ought to lead those who 
appreciate their freedom, in which their a Practical 
likeness to God chiefly consists, reso- 
lutely, constantly, and confidently to resist every 
tendency toward evil. There is no sin until there 
is a wrong choice, but that wrong choice may exist 
in the mind without an opportunity for its mani- 
festation in conduct. It is not the less evil. Sin 
is not an objective entity. It has no continued and 
independent being. It has its genesis every time 
any one chooses to do wrong rather than right, or 
a lesser instead of a greater good. But behind 
every act are various conditions and processes. 
Sins are never accidents. They are preceded by 
preparation, although that preparation may have 
been unconscious. There would be no temptation 
were there not states of mind hospitable to sugges- 
tions of guilty choices. We are blameworthy not 
only for what we choose to do, but also for what we 
choose to think. Wrong thoughts may knock at 
the mind, but only he who wishes need give them 
entrance. If, in some surreptitious way, they steal 
in, they can be driven out instantly by those who 
so desire. Responsibility for our choices rests on 
ourselves, not on our ancestry, our environment, or 
on God. The will stands sentinel at the gates of 



190 THE AGE OF FAITH 

the mind. The wise man will be as careful about 
what he thinks as about what he does. Opportunities 
for impurity have attractions only for those whose 
thoughts are impure. An open door suggests no 
criminal chances to him who has never brooded 
over the possibility of theft. Above all things we 
should guard our thoughts. " As a man thinketh 
in his heart, so is he." " Thou wilt keep him in 
perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." 

We should never infer that, because something 
is wrong with ourselves, either the uni- 

Conclusion. 

verse is out of order, or love does not 
rule the affairs of men. How freedom and love 
may be reconciled, I do not know. At times the 
separation between them seems like the diameter 
of the solar system ; but they are both real, and 
no amount of speculation can explain them away. 
Fatherhood is love in action, however unconscious 
or rebellious the child may be ; and the love of the 
Father will continue as long as fatherhood endures, 
and that is as long as God exists. The individual 
may violate the beneficent order in which he is 
placed ; but love and the purpose of blessing will 
abide forever. The Divine plan can be defeated by 
our folly no more than the falling of a meteor can 
disarrange the movement of the stellar universe. 
Throughout the ages "one unceasing purpose 
runs." 



sm 191 

No one was ever compelled to a sinful choice. 
Within every human soul dwells the power of re- 
sistance. Few sights are more sublime than the 
example of those who have done evil, and come 
into bondage, arising in their might and fighting and 
conquering in life's battle. Spirit is sovereign. 
It cannot permanently be overthrown. The love 
of which the universe is the expression appeals to 
every man to assert his rights as a son of God. 
How that appeal may be heeded may be learned 
from the response which it has received again and 
again, as those who apparently were morally dead 
have risen, broken their grave-clothes, and walked 
out among men with the sunlight on their faces. 
Lazarus was not the only person who has been 
raised ; nor is the Divine voice which cries " Come 
forth" always external. It echoes in the silence 
of every soul which recognizes its freedom; and 
whoever will may respond. The burden of every 
preacher, and of every man with vision and moral 
earnestness, should be, "Fix your affections on 
things above." The power to do so is always im- 
manent. The appeal is from that which is best in 
ourselves ; from the love which pervades the uni- 
verse ; and it is as true now as when the words 
were first spoken that "Whosoever will may 
come." 



VIII 

SALVATION 

The reality and universality of sin have been 
considered in the previous chapter. The existence 
of sin carries with it the idea of blame. Weak- 
ness in itself is never blameworthy ; but the con- 
scious choice of a lesser instead of a greater good, 
or of wrong instead of right, possesses the quality 
of guilt. In many ways and in many lands men 
have tried to escape from moral evil, but the result 
has always been the same. However its presence 
may be accounted for, the mystery attending it 
has never been broken. Its shadow rests upon 
literature, history, and the common conscience and 
consciousness of mankind. Nothing is more use- 
less than to attempt to show either the reality or 
the unreality of sin. If it be proven to be a dream, 
the dream fills the waking as the sleeping hours. 
It has haunted the human experience as long as 
the story of moral action has been written. That 
it has the quality of guilt is the judgment which 
is passed upon it by the court that sits in every 
man's soul. 



SALVATION 193 

In one sense sin is something more than the 
choice of a lesser instead of a greater The 

Depraved 

good, because evidently a fatal and uni- Nature. 
versal tendency toward wrong-doing is innate in 
humanity. It was a serious, though perhaps a 
pardonable, mistake to call this tendency " original 
sin." It is not sin, although it makes sin well- 
nigh inevitable. If it is imperfection, weakness, 
or ignorance, it is none the less perilous and per- 
nicious. In the eye of the Heavenly Father it 
must be regarded in the same way as inborn tend- 
encies toward physical disease. In human fam- 
ilies, those who inherit bias toward peculiar types 
of disease are watched and guarded with singular 
sympathy and care. Among good men, the greater 
the weakness the more constant the consideration. 
Inherited bias is not disease ; and moral weakness 
which leads to sin is not sin ; neither does it justly 
carry with it any element of blame. It is, how- 
ever, none the less to be dreaded. The latest in- 
vestigations in the sphere of heredity confirm the 
conclusions of the old theology as to the reality of 
a depraved nature. Herbert Spencer and Charles 
Darwin insisted on the transmissibility of acquired 
characteristics. That means that whatever comes 
into the nature by choice, or by the influence of 
environment, is transmitted to those who come 
after. The scientific doctrine of heredity contains 



194 THE AGE OF FAITH 

the substance of the theological doctrine of original 
sin. In its scientific form none even question it, 
however much they may revolt and rebel against 
the theological form in which it was stated in the 
Middle Ages. The theological phrase implies that 
weakness is blameworthy ; but the scientific teach- 
ing suggests something requiring consideration. 
Neither the human heart nor the moral sense will, 
for a moment, consent to regard an inherited tend- 
ency toward evil as belonging in the same cate- 
gory as conscious choice of evil. The inherited 
tendency toward sin, or the weakened condition 
which is likely to lead to sin, is as evident and uni- 
versal as any fact of the natural or moral world. 
So far all intelligent students of human nature 
agree. This is not the doctrine of an obsolete the- 
ology, but the result of a careful study of human 
nature and history. One might as well affirm 
that there are no nights in the year, and that there 
is no sorrow in the universe, as to question the ex- 
istence of sin, and of that weakened nature which so 
pitilessly manifests itself, sooner or later, in one 
degree or another, in acts of wrong-doing. 

These considerations lead directly to one of 

the distinguishing teachings of Christ, 

Birth. namely. His doctrine of the New Birth. 

Jesus said, " Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye 

must be born anew," — or born from above. The 



SALVATION 195 

emphasis belongs on the word " marvel." It is no 
wonder. The necessity of a radical transformation 
in character is not dependent on any word uttered 
by Jesus. He spoke of what others also might 
have known, as well as He, and of what every 
intelligent person may verify for himself. If sin 
were only a nightmare, if none ever actually chose 
wrong instead of right, still His words would merit 
attention because even dreams have a measure of 
substantiality, and occasionally of suffering. Sin 
and the weak and imperfect condition are sad reali- 
ties. The best men condemn themselves the most 
severely. No memory is " like the cloudless air ; " 
no conscience is " like a sea at rest." The whitest 
flowers of our human life are the most conscious 
that they need the light from above to bring to 
them color and beauty. 

Our next inquiry naturally is this : By what 
means may one who has sinned — and all have 
sinned — reach a state of purity and peace ? The 
ideal is contained in the word "holiness." The 
child was intended to be like his Father. God 
is the Father, and the holiness of God should char- 
acterize all the children of God. How may such 
flawless character be realized ? This has been an 
eager and a practical inquiry in all ages. Not only 
have elect souls groped eagerly toward a higher 
life, but the more obscure and humble, with equal 



196 THE AGE OF FAITH 

pathos and patience, have prayed for deliverance 
from the sway of sense and passion. Paul voiced 
the longing of many when he exclaimed : " Who 
shall deliver me out of the body of this death ? " ^ 
In all the ethnic religions consciousness of guilt is 
a familiar experience. Those who seek the holy 
life make great sacriiBces, go on long pilgrimages, 
give of the fruit of their body for the sin of their 
soul, offer long-continued prayers, lacerate their 
flesh, and seek in every conceivable way to restore 
the peace of which the consciousness of their guilt 
has robbed them. To the student of human nature 
this is one of the most familiar of all experiences. 
It may be called superstition, or a relic of barba- 
rism, — it matters not ; the fact is that the common 
quest of earnest souls has been for redemption from 
the bondage of evil and guilt. In other words, the 
desire for what Christians call "the New Birth" 
has been ceaseless and universal. It follows not 
more frequently the consciousness of wrong than 
the consciousness of peril which comes to those 
who feel their weakness and the possibility of fall- 
ing. How may the one who has done wrong be 
made to hate the malign forces which have im- 
pelled him downward, and to love and seek the 
right? This is an old question. But there is 
another equally important, How may the tendency 

1 Romans vii. 24, R. V. 



SALVATION 197 

toward evil be checked and the soul made to move 
upward ? Another question more far-reaching still 
is, How may the moral nature be so purified that 
heredity itself shall cease to transmit evil desire 
and become a vehicle of health and welfare alone ? 
These are fundamental questions, and they lead 
directly to the teaching of Jesus concerning the 
birth from above. If the moral nature is trans- 
formed so that truth and right are sought and 
loved, it must be by some power outside of and 
stronger than the will which has already chosen 
unworthy ends. I may repent of the sinful choice 
which I have made ; I may turn from it ; I may 
vow never to repeat it ; but if that is all, my pledge 
will be of little avail, since underneath my vow are 
the impulses of a depraved nature, while on every 
side temptations are making incessant appeals to 
that nature. The will must act, but there must 
be something more than the will. In some way 
the undercurrent must be reached. I may change 
that which is external ; I may resolve that, though 
resistance kills me, I will never again yield to the 
wrong as I have done ; but then, if that is all, the 
struggle of the soul may be more intense and bitter 
than ever, with failure at the end. Life may be 
simply one long and terrible battle unless some 
one shall sweeten the fountain of being, so that 
the affections as well as the will shall be fixed 



198 THE AGE OF FAITH 

on tilings above, so that thought shall be purified 
as well as choice. How may this be done ? That 
inquiry may be evaded for a time, but it cannot 
permanently be silenced. It is the question of 
questions. It underlies all attempts at improve- 
ment both in religion and ethics. The struggle of 
humanity is not simply toward a better choice, but 
toward such moral conditions as shall necessitate 
right action. On the other hand, change of nature 
must be preceded by a change of choice. When the 
nature is changed the choice will be changed ; and 
yet the choice will not be changed until the nature 
is changed. Here is an apparent difficulty, but it 
is one which is met by the teachings of our Lord, 
which declare that wherever there is repentance, 
which is solely the free choice of the individual, it 
is met by corresponding action from above. It is 
as if Jesus had said. If a sailor will properly set his 
rudder, the wind will fill his sails. The will is the 
rudder of the character : if it is turned in the rioht 
direction, all the winds of the heavens will favor ; 
if it is turned in the wrong direction, they will op- 
pose. What light does the doctrine of the Divine 
Fatherhood shed upon this subject? It throws no 
light on the mystery of sin or of the weakened 
moral nature. Those have always been subjects 
of speculation. The wisest now are not one step 
nearer their solution than were thinkers who lived 



SALVATION 199 

centuries ago. Plato understood the facts as well 
as Herbert Spencer. Some depths have always 
been too deep for any man's plummet. Specula- 
tion leaves us suspended in mid-air, but Father- 
hood teaches that underneath even sin and the 
imperfect moral nature is the everlasting love. 
Whatever the mystery, love is beneath it and 
above it and around it. Every dark problem, like 
every human life, is beset behind and before with 
God. 

Another fact now comes into view. All men 

are and always have been equally the Not aii chil- 
dren know 
children of God. The universal Father- their Father. 

hood of God carries with it the universal son- 
ship of man. But all the children of God do not 
equally recognize their sonship. Here the analogy 
of the home sheds light upon our subject. In one 
family are four children, two boys and two girls. 
One boy and one girl are loving, obedient, studious, 
industrious, a joy to their parents and an honor to 
the household. The other boy and the other girl 
are disobedient. They grow up careless, heedless, 
wicked ; they wander into distant lands, cause 
anxiety and pain, loss and shame. The latter are 
none the less children than the former, but they do 
not occupy the same relation to the parents. The 
home is the analogy of the universe. In all lands 
and worlds, those who patiently and earnestly seek 



200 THE AGE OF FAITH 

to know and do the Father's will, to work with 
Him for the accomplishment of His purposes, 
realize, faintly perhaps but surely, the dignity and 
the glory of their sonship. But others live as if 
there were no God ; their words are foul, their con- 
duct vicious, and their influence fatal. When 
Jesus teaches the universality of the Fatherhood, 
He does not mean that all the children equally 
recognize it, or that the Father is equally pleased 
with the conduct of all ; but He does mean that 
all are encompassed by God's love, and that all are 
embraced in God's plans of compassion. 

Another fact comes into prominence at this point, 
Love most namely, the greatness of the Father's love 

Evident in mi i i • tt* ^ i 

its Relation Will alwavs DC morc apparent m His deal- 
to the , ^ -' ^ ^ \ 
Unworthy. Jngg with thc disobcdicut than with the 

obedient. On the one hand, the love goes out as a 

matter of course — it is expected ; on the other 

band, it is a surprise. With the one class it is 

partly earned, with the other it is a free gift. 

What Jesus said about the rain falling alike on 

the evil and on the good is literally true, and 

a great mystery. Love always appears greatest 

where its manifestation is least deserved. 

These truths are now before us. All have sinned. 

There is in humanity a tendency toward evil, 

which is sure to manifest itself in forms more or 

less aggravated. What Jesus called the New Birth, 



SALVATION" 201 

or the birth from above, is the condition of a higher 
and better life, and the change implied in that 
experience is so great that there can be hope of 
its realization only as Divine power supplements 
human weakness. The doctrine of the New Birth 
is fundamental in religion and in ethics. All men 
are equally the children of God, but those who 
have experienced the New Birth are in relations to 
the Father as unlike the relations of those who are 
neglectful of His will, and who do not seek har- 
mony with Him, as light is unlike darkness, or as 
harmony is unlike discord. 

A question now arises which has occupied a 
large place in theological thought. What what must 

precede the 

was necessary to be done in order that New Birth. 
the New Birth might be realized ? Do those who 
consciously do wrong put themselves in such a 
state of enmity toward God and the universe that 
something needs to be done in their behalf, or in 
their stead, in order that the transformation may 
be permitted? Is God so angry or so holy that 
He needs to be appeased before He can be forgiv- 
ing ? Has the conscious choice of evil broken the 
harmony between the children and the Father so 
that something more than repentance is required 
before the Father can consistently restore the cul- 
prit to his old place in the household? These 
questions in our time may not occupy as large a 



202 THE AGE OF FAITH 

place In the thought of the world as they once did, 
and yet no one who reads contemporary theology 
can fail to have observed that few subjects more 
persistently force themselves upon the attention of 
those who think than the doctrine of the Atone- 
ment, which is simply an attempt to answer the 
question, On what condition may the New Birth 
be permitted? Here I would speak with great 
modesty, and with full appreciation of the earnest 
efforts to answer this question on the part of able 
and reverent men who have lived in other days, or 
who are living now. The subject will be more 
easily understood if I group under a few heads 
some of the theories which have been held to be a 
sufficient solution of this problem. 

One school of thinkers have held that God is 
Theories of absolutely just ; that not only can He do 

the Atone- . . 

ment. The nothiuo^ that IS uuiust, but He can permit 

Satisfaction ° . . 

Theory. nothing that is unjust. When a man 
chooses wrong instead of right, he violates infinite 
justice and merits condemnation. Before the New 
Birth can be realized, the sentiment of justice in the 
Deity must be satisfied. Justice can be satisfied 
only as every act of wrong-doing receives its ap- 
propriate penalty. Those who sin cut themselves 
off from God, and must remain forever cut off un- 
less in some way they are restored. They could 
not restore themselves, therefore the Son of God, 



I 



SALVATION 203 

as a pure act of mercy, suffered in their stead, and 
His sufferings, because of His infinite nature, 
are equivalent to what would have been suffered 
by the offenders if they had been punished ; and 
therefore, because of the sufferings of the sinless 
Son of God, the New Birth is possible. God is 
satisfied. 

This theory does not teach that Christ suffered all 
the punishment which others would have suffered, 
but that what He endured, so to speak, paid the 
debt, or equalized the balance, so that the holiness 
of God is satisfied and man may be forgiven. 
This was the teaching of the older Calvinism. It 
has behind it some of the greatest names in the 
history of human thought. It should not lightly 
be cast aside, for the theory could have found favor 
in the eyes of such men as honestly held it only as 
it had in it some element of truth. They believed 
that the justice of God was His supreme attribute. 
They adored His awful majesty. With such be- 
liefs as they held concerning God, such a theory of 
what is called the Atonement was inevitable. 

Another school of thinkers have reasoned some- 
what as follows : This universe is under The Govern- 
mental 

a moral government which is analogous Theory. 
to the kingdoms of the earth. At the head of this 
moral government is a king. This government is 
subject to law. One of its laws is that the one 



204 THE AGE OF FAITH 

who does wrong shall suffer an adequate penalty. 
Since he has broken the law which was ordained 
by God, he is guilty of an infinite sin, and infinite 
sin demands infinite punishment, which is ever- 
lasting. It is necessary, therefore, that the sinner 
should be everlastingly punished in order that the 
majesty of the law may be maintained ; and all 
sinners would have been so punished had it not 
been that One stepped into the sinner's place whose 
sufferings, because of His exalted nature, were suf- 
ficient to uphold the majesty of the law and yet to 
allow the sinner to be released. This is the teach- 
ing of what is known as the New England Theo- 
logy. It has been held by such men as Jonathan 
Edwards, President Edwards of New Haven, Pro- 
fessor Park of Andover, and others among whom 
have been some of the greatest intellects that this 
continent has known. They taught that above 
everything else the sanctity of the moral order of 
the universe must be maintained ; that man in the 
exercise of his free will has chosen to break that 
order ; that he ought to suffer, and would have 
suffered, everlastingly, had not God, who is bound 
by loyalty to Himself to maintain that order, 
provided a way by which it can be maintained 
and yet the one who has done wrong be forgiven. 
As the conspicuous thought in the " Satisfaction 
Theory " is the awful holiness and justice of God, 



SALVATION 205 

so the point of emphasis in the " Governmental 
Theory " is the sanctity of the moral order of the 
universe. Love requires that it shall be upheld, 
and not hate but love inspired the rigor with which 
its laws are executed. Man may be forgiven, and 
the New Birth realized, because the sacrifice of 
Christ on the Cross was a sufficient substitute for 
the punishment of the sinner. 

These theories do not satisfy me ; I do not find 
them harmonious with the Scripture or the moral 
sense, and yet I insist that the truth which they 
undoubtedly contain should be recognized. They 
are not the idle speculations of dreamers ; they 
are the results of the lifelong study of consecrated 
men who have pondered earnestly, patiently, and 
sympathetically the problems of suffering and sin. 

Another theory vastly more vital and harmonious 
with the Christian revelation repudiates The Moral 
the thought that anything needed to be Theory. 
done, either to satisfy the justice of God, or to 
maintain the majesty of His law. The nature of 
God Himself makes such expedients unnecessary. 
The real question is. How may the one who has 
done wrong be induced to accept the provisions of 
pardon which are free to all ? The great champion 
of this theory in England was Frederick Denison 
Maurice ; in Scotland, John McLeod Campbell ; 
and in this country, Horace Bushnell, of Hart- 



206 THE AGE OF FAITH 

ford. They found in the suffering and death of 
Christ a unique manifestation of the love of God, 
and believed that His vicarious but voluntary sac- 
rifice was the means which was used to persuade 
the unrepentant to be reconciled to the Father, 
who had never ceased to love them. This view 
seems to me far more harmonious with what is 
known of the character of God than the other 
views which I have mentioned. It is a mournful 
commentary on the progress of practical Chris- 
tianity that teachers of a doctrine which thus mag- 
nified the Divine love could have been looked upon 
by so many as enemies of the truth. But the 
heresy of one generation is the creed of the next, 
and Maurice, Campbell, and Bushnell have no 
lack of sympathizers and followers in these more 
Christian times. Their isolation has borne fruit in 
more satisfying views of the nature of God, and 
in saner interpretations of our Lord's work. 

Nevertheless, it seems to me that even these 
Fatherhood modcm prophcts did not go far enough, 
ment. and I ask — What light does the Father- 

hood of God shed upon the inquiry ? What needed 
to be done in order that the New Birth might be 
permitted to become a reality ? If God is abstract 
justice, then no doubt His justice required satisfac- 
tion. If the moral order of the universe can be 
maintained in no other way, then its majesty must 



SALVATION" 207 

be exhibited even in penalty and suffering. If the 
object of the life and death of Christ was solely to 
make an impression on men, then the spectacle 
would be made as impressive as possible. But if, 
on the other hand, the universe is our Father's 
house, and all men are equally the children of His 
love, whether they merit it or not, then the course 
will be simple and clear. In the best earthly home, 
when one has been for long years a shame to the 
household, what is required before he may be re- 
stored to the confidence which he has lost ? Is not 
this all ? He must give adequate evidence that he 
is a changed man. When that evidence is satisfac- 
tory, whatever the wrong may have been, the doors 
of the home swing wide for the return of the prodi- 
gal. He may have disgraced the family ; the father 
and mother care not for that. They recognize 
that he is a new man, and he is welcome to all that 
they possess. His presence before was a pollution ; 
so long as that was the case, they compelled him 
to remain elsewhere ; but when the foulness had 
gone, and humility and purity had taken its place, 
they received him back with love and thanksgiving. 
In any earthly home worthy of the name there would 
be no exception, I am persuaded, to such treatment 
of an erring child. One knocks at the door who 
has been long absent, and whose name has not even 
been mentioned. He has brought upon those who 



208 THE AGE OF FAITH 

were innocent financial ruin and moral disgrace. 
Now lie returns as a little child, and brings with 
him evidence that he is a new man. He says to 
his father : " I have sinned against the home. I 
am worthy of nothing at your hands. What do 
you require in order that once more I may be 
permitted to live among those who love me and 
be known as your child ? " The father says : " My 
son, all that we want to know is that you are once 
more in harmony with the family, that you have 
entered into its spirit and will promote its welfare. 
We are sure of that now, therefore nothing more 
needs to be done." The welcome is instant, gracious, 
and insistent. The relation of the father toward the 
child is changed because the attitude of the child 
toward the father is changed. But some one may 
say : " Such a course would do very well in the 
home, where love overlooks mistakes, but it would 
not do in the universe, where a moral order must be 
maintained, and men be made to understand that 
none can do wrong without suffering." The reply 
is : " This principle would not work in an earthly 
government of course, because men may feign re- 
pentance and deceive the most discerning ; but no 
one can deceive God ; the Heavenly Father pene- 
trates the inmost secrets of hearts : before His 
eye every dark place is opened. He may do what 
other rulers in their limitation and ignorance would 



SALVATION 209 

not be able to do. What might not be wise for a 
human government would be natural in the Divine 
government. When the father knows that the son 
is thoroughly repentant, he is ready to forgive. 
" But," some one inquires, " how can this be pos- 
sible, and yet the world be taught that only holiness 
is acceptable to God ? " I reply : This difficulty 
is purely speculative ; it is never practical. Even 
with the limitations of our human life, we recognize 
that repentance is always a valid ground for for- 
giveness, and the father who would close his door to 
a repentant son would be regarded as a monster 
and not as a father. The law that " Whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap," is not violated 
when a child is freely pardoned, and having reaped 
the bitter fruit of his action, in humble contrition 
returns bearing with him the sheaves of his suffer- 
ing. He says : " I see the folly of my ways ; I hate 
the course that I have pursued ; I beg that I may 
be permitted once more a small place in the home 
from which I merit nothing." No one is encouraged 
in evil courses if he is forgiven. " What then 
becomes of the grace of God, — which is pardon 
given to the undeserving?" The reply is: Pardon 
to the undeserving is possible in a home as well as 
in a government. The holiness of a father is more 
sublime and majestic than the holiness of a king. 
A father cannot allow foulness in a household be- 



210 THE AGE OF FAITH 

cause of the ruin it will work. When he sees that 
there is no longer ruin but blessing to be achieved, 
the same holiness opens the doors wide and bids 
the wanderer return, — and that is " free grace." 

This leads us to a truth still more fundamental 
A Necessity and vital. It is a necessity of fatherhood 

of Father- i • i • m i i n 

hood. that everything which is possible shall 

be done for the rescue of those who are in bondage 
to weakness and ignorance, or who, by a misuse 
of their freedom, have become the slaves of sin. 
Here again the analogy of the home will help us. 
What will a father do in order that his child who 
has gone wrong may be saved, not from the suffer- 
ings which he merits, but from the sin which is his 
ruin ? He will weep for him bitter tears ; he will 
follow him into many lands ; he will go to him in 
prison ; he will spend his last dollar to find him. 
This has been proved again and again. Almost 
every day we read of those who have literally died 
in their quest for children that have wandered 
from truth and virtue. It is a necessity of the pa- 
rental heart to give itself in behalf of the child who 
may neither appreciate nor care for the sacrifice 
which he is causing. Interpreted by fatherhood, 
we rise to this majestic and magnificent truth : the 
Heart that beats at the centre of the universe, 
the Soul and Spirit of all things that are, in His 
relation to the humblest, the poorest, the mean- 



SALVATION 211 

est, the vilest, is truly revealed in the passion of 
a father and mother to find and save their child 
who has disregarded their wishes and violated 
their love. And that is not something occasional, 
but it is everlasting in the nature of God. It is 
that which gives significance to the cross. " What 
relation does the cross have to the sin of man ? " 
It is a hint of the length to which Divine love 
and sacrifice will go to find and to save. " What, 
then, is meant by the blood of Christ ? " That the 
eternal God goes out to the undeserving in sacrifice 
which can be expressed only dimly by death, that 
there is no depth which the Divine love does not 
penetrate, and no space which it does not compass, 
that in proportion to the degradation and ruin is 
the ministry of Him whose " mercy endureth for- 
ever." In a distant land you find a father look- 
ing for his long-lost boy. That is what human 
fatherhood does for one who has wandered from 
an earthly home. On the cross is revealed all that 
we can understand of the length to which the 
Divine love goes in its search for those who are 
lost from God. 

What light does the Fatherhood of God shed 
upon this mysterious and yet magnificent 

Conclusion. 

theme ? It makes more apparent and 

awful the nature of sin, since it is not violation of 

law, but violation of love. No one feels the same 



212 THE AGE OF FAITH 

horror of one who falsifies a tax return as of one 
who steals from his mother ; and yet the only dif- 
ference between the acts is that the one is a sin 
against law and the other against love. Sin and 
moral weakness show the necessity of a change in 
nature, as well as in conduct, so radical that it can 
be described only as a new birth. The New Birth 
reaches not only to a change of choice, but even 
to a purification of the fountains of being. Only 
God is sufficient for such a task. In the " little 
systems " of men this subject has been hedged 
around with many difficulties. As justice has 
seemed to be sovereign in the universe, some have 
felt that it must be satisfied before those who 
had done wrong could expect either help or hope. 
Others, as they have considered the universal moral 
order, have believed that before there could be help 
or hope for a sinner, the majesty of the Divine law 
must be so safeguarded that no one would imagine 
that any sin could go unpunished; that only in 
this way could those prone to evil be prevented 
from continuous wrong-doing. Others have taught 
that the race is in need of some great exhibition 
of Divine love in order that it might appreciate 
its possibilities and seek to realize its opportuni- 
ties. The light of Fatherhood reaches still farther. 
It shows that there is but one thing which must of 
necessity precede the New Birth, viz., repentance, 



SALVATION 213 

and that that must always do so. There must be on 
the part of the individual hatred of the nature that 
leads to wrong-doing and a resolution to fight its 
impulses while strength and life endure. When 
repentance is genuine, all the resources of omnipo- 
tent love are pledged to the weakest and the hum- 
blest of the children of men. Fatherhood teaches 
that the crown and glory of all divinity, that which 
is eternal and essential in the nature of God and 
inseparable from His being, is love which will sac- 
rifice until the lost is found. The glory of the 
cross is the revelation of God in sacrifice. 

What needs to be done in order that I may ex- 
perience the New Birth ? I must repent of my sin, 
and resolve, God helping me, to resist all tempta- 
tions even to the bitter end. Yes, but what needs 
to be done that God may be willing to forgive? 
The answer of Fatherhood is instant, magnificent, 
and final. Fatherhood needs only to know that the 
son has truly repented. But what about the influ- 
ence of such action on others? That is an idle 
question ; since those who do wrong are followed so 
remorselessly by the consequences of their own ac- 
tion that there can be no doubt on the part of any 
that God is satisfied only with holiness. The cul- 
mination of the relation of man to God is perfect 
harmony between them. He is holy. We can be- 
come like Him only as He lifts us up to Himself. 



214 THE AGE OF FAITH 

By a necessity of His nature He is always longing 
to save His children. Nothing needs to be done 
to win Him. He is appeased already. All that 
any are called upon to do is to enter into the pos- 
session of what has always been theirs. 



IX 

PRAYER 

Prayer as it is taught in the New Testament is 
a very simple subject, but as commonly presented 
it causes much perplexity and anxiety. Properly 
understood, it is as natural as speech ; but wrongly 
interpreted, the difficulties are many and cannot 
lightly be set aside. I approach this subject in the 
conviction that most of the confusion concerning it 
has resulted from a failure to give proper place and 
emphasis to the doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood. 
The analogies of law courts were impressive in 
Roman times, but in these days they are exceed- 
ingly misleading. Law has a new meaning. Sci- 
ence has lifted the idea of government to cosmic 
proportions. The political order has given place 
to the physical and moral order. Formerly, divine 
action was interpreted in the light of human insti- 
tutions, but now human institutions are interpreted 
in the light of divine revelations. Every subject 
has to be approached in a way peculiar to the en- 
vironment in which it is studied. New times ne- 
cessitate new terms and new methods. Certain 



216 THE AGE OF FAITH 

presuppositions are essential to any proper con- 
sideration of this subject. They have been men- 
tioned in previous chapters, but not improperly 
may be referred to again. 

God is the ultimate or absolute reality, and He 
is a person. The word " person " when ap- 
t^een^Man pli^^ to the Deity means exactly the same 
*" ° ' as when applied to humanity. 

He is revealed in humanity. He is spirit, and 
spirit of necessity unites in one self -consciousness 
the power to know, the power to feel, and the power 
to choose. What man is within limitations God 
is without limitations. Man is spirit and, there- 
fore, a person. Personality signifies the same in 
man as in God. The difference between man and 
God is one of " distance," not of nature. A stone 
can hold no communication with a man because 
between them there is a difference of nature. A 
child, however, may have intercourse with a phi- 
losopher or a king, for while the distance between 
them is great, there is a kinship of nature. But 
identity of nature does not mean destruction of in- 
dividuality. If man is as truly personal as God, 
and God is the infinite Person, communion is not 
only possible but inevitable. It is necessary, how- 
ever, to repeat that in communion individuality is 
not lost. A sunbeam cannot hold intercourse with 
the splendor of which it is a part, nor a leaf haye 



PRAYER 217 

conscious fellowship v/ith the stuff of the universe. 
An emanation is one thing ; an individual person 
is another thing. The former may be re-absorbed 
into that from which it came, but the latter can- 
not be. 

Since God is a person who is imaged in human- 
ity, and since man is a person who reflects God, 
intercourse between them, as I have said, is both 
natural and inevitable. 

Since God and man are both free, that inter- 
course may take whatever form either one Revelation 

versus 

may choose, (jrod may speak to man — Prayer. 
that is called revelation ; man may speak to God — 
that usually takes the form of prayer. But it 
need not be petition in the common understanding 
of that word. It may be adoration, praise, thanks- 
giving, conversation between the child and the 
parent. 

Belief in the reality of such communications has 
been found in all nations and religions. It has 
taken many forms, but has ever been a conspicuous 
and universal fact. Sacrifice has its origin in 
prayer, and every form of worship is evidence of 
a belief on the part of the worshiper in the 
possibility of communing with the Deity whom he 
worships. The offering may consist of fruit, of 
animals, or even of human beings ; or it may be 
the more spiritual adoration of the fire-worshipers, 



218 THE AGE OF FAITH 

who see in the glory of the dawn and the bright- 
ness of the sun and stars objects which awe them 
into silence and draw from their souls exclamations 
of praise. Whether the worshiper be a priest 
with an uplifted knife ready to slay the victim upon 
the altar, or another priest with a garland of flow- 
ers and a sheaf of grain, or a peasant prostrate 
before the rising sun, the act means the same thing, 
for all equally recognize the possibility and reality 
of intercourse between the human individual and 
the Almighty. The history of religion is the his- 
tory of faith in the possibility and reality of some 
kind of communication between God and man. 
The more primitive faiths represent the Deity as 
manifesting Himself in ways that strike terror, 
speaking in the thunder, and flashing indignation 
in the lightning. The supplications of men with 
such a faith are apt to be cringing and cruel. 
Like God like man, is a truth which has the force 
of an axiom. As belief in a holy and loving 
Father becomes more general, worship grows spir- 
itual and more widely satisfying. 

In these principles which are truisms we have 
a foundation for a consideration of the subject 
of prayer. Prayer is a part of the intercourse 
between man and God. God approaches man in 
revelation, man approaches God in prayer. 

What, now, is the Christian doctrine of prayer ? 



PRAYER 219 



It differs from that of other religions only in being 
more spiritual, and in being so presented ^he ch 



ns- 
tian Teach- 



, I'jiriji 1 t.ian j.eaci 

as to commend itseir to the reason and mg about 
the moral sense. Jesus deals with this 
subject in two ways : by example, and by direct 
teaching. It must not be forgotten that almost the 
only word for God which He used was Father. 
This exercise, which with the masters of other re- 
ligions was the abject humiliation of a subject be- 
fore an infinite and awful sovereign, with Jesus was 
the glad and grateful approach of a child to his 
parent. Prayer in the Ethnic faiths is intercourse 
between man and the monarch whom he fears and 
worships ; prayer with Jesus is the intercourse be- 
tween a child and his Father. This distinction is 
clear and fundamental. In the one conception are 
found all the difficulties which have been associ- 
ated with this subject and which still attend it ; 
while the latter offers a reasonable and satisfying 
solution of a perplexing problem. 

At the beginning of His public ministry, before 
He undertook any great work, Jesus went ^^ Exam- 
apart and spent a whole night in prayer ^^® °^ ^®^"^' 
to God. What took place during those hours of 
silence is not revealed. It was not necessary that 
it should be. The Son in communion with His 
Father is the world's noblest and most illuminat- 
ing example of the reality of prayer. Before 



220 THE AGE OF FAITH 

He selected those who were to be His most inti- 
mate and constant fellow-workers, He withdrew into 
companionship with God, in whose strength His 
task was to be achieved. Beyond that we may 
not penetrate. Those who follow His example in 
their own way will learn more of the mystery of 
prayer than will ever be taught them by human 
teachers. 

On the night before His crucifixion the pure soul 
of Jesus audibly breathed aspiration and petition. 
The Intercessory Prayer in behalf of His disciples 
is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Gos- 
pel according to John. It shows the Son in com- 
munion with the Father ; now talking to Him in a 
simple and direct way of blessings desired, and 
again with impassioned entreaty asking for the 
unity of His followers and the sure glory of His 
kingdom. 

In Gethsemane he besought God, saying : " If 
it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Never- 
theless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Here the 
prayer has two parts, petition and resignation. 
Some of the words of Jesus on the cross are also 
examples of prayer. " Father, forgive them." 
Thus He directly sought a blessing for those who 
were injuring Him. At the last He said : " Father, 
into thy hands I commend my spirit." In this 
utterance again we find petition and resignation. 



PRAYER 221 

Turning from the example to the teaching of 
Jesus we come, first, to the Lord's Prayer TheTeacii- 
— the most significant of all His words ^^ ^^ ^®^"^' 
on this subject. This is an example of true prayer. 
A part of it is recognition of God ; another part 
the expression of desire for spiritual blessings; a 
single request concerns physical needs ; while still 
another part is the voice of reverent satisfaction in 
the Divine will. 

Into the teaching of the apostle I will not enter, 
since it is onlj'^ an echo of what is found in the 
Gospels. All the teachings of Jesus on this sub- 
ject are clear and easily understood. With Him 
prayer was the intercourse of parent and child. 
The more common word, "conversation," covers the 
meaning, although at first it seems far too small. 
The prayers of Jesus were His conversations with 
His Father, and the Lord's Prayer is an illustration 
of how a man may converse with God. When a 
communication begins with the word " Father," 
the ideas of awe, fear, distance, which characterize 
those who prostrate themselves before the invisible 
powers, disappear, and a clear note of confidence 
and personal affection is introduced. 

All masters of religion recognize the possibility 
of intercourse beween man and Deity. The doc- 
trine of Jesus differs from that of other teachers 
in that while they represent God as a king who 



222 THE AGE OF FAITH 

must be appeased, a being who can be satisfied only 
with sacrifices, He represents Him as the almighty 
and all loving Father. With them, prayer contains 
an element of terror ; with Him, it is pervaded with 
confidence and affection. With them, the attitude 
is one of prostration ; with Him, it is the expec- 
tancy of trust. 

But here we are met with the objection that an- 
swer to prayer involves a violation of the 

Objections. , . f~r\ . . . 

uniformity of nature. This objection has 
been raised so often and by such eminent authorities 
that it has had an influence which it does not merit. 
What is the uniformity of nature ? The physical 
order which has thus far been observed by the 
science of man. But only a small fraction of nature 
has yet been explored. When Professor Huxley 
wrote his famous treatise on Prayer, neither the 
phonograph nor the X-rays had been heard of, or 
dreamed of. In the professor's own field of biology, 
immense strides have been taken and vast explora- 
tions have been made since he laid down his task. 
The uniformity of nature is a great and true phrase, 
but sometimes it is made to carry burdens which 
are too heavy for it. It means that there is uni- 
formity so far as observation has gone, and that 
from what has been we may properly infer what 
will be. There is an immense assumption in the 
phrase, "the uniformity of nature," as it is com- 



PRAYER 223 

monly used, but we may pass that by. The uni- 
formity of nature does not and cannot mean that 
there is no cooperation between various laws ; that 
there is no higher sphere than the physical ; and 
that new forces and new laws may not yet be dis- 
covered. Again, uniformity applies to physical 
things. The mind and the affections belong to free 
beings. We are the inhabitants of two worlds. In 
the lower there is uniformity ; in the higher there 
is freedom. Prayer is an illustration of the inter- 
action between these worlds. There is constant 
communication aud cooperation between them. If 
poison is administered in sufficient quantities, a 
physical law determines that it will surely kill ; but 
an intelligent and free being may administer an 
antidote to that poison by which the life of the 
sufferer may be saved. Poison never would apply 
its own antidote. To affirm that it would, would 
be to assert a break in the uniformity of nature, 
but to hold that mind and will may administer 
saving remedies is not to believe in any fracture of 
the law of causation. In accordance with a law of 
nature, iron in water will sink ; left to itseK it 
always does so ; there never has been known an 
exception. And yet mind may so fashion it as to 
make it float, and it may build it into ships which 
will fly like the wind over the waters, carrying 
whole cities at a time. This is no violation of the 



224 , THE AGE OF FAITH 

uniformity of nature, but an illustration of a higher 
sphere acting upon the lower. The wheels of a 
factory roll on remorselessly. Left to themselves, 
with the power behind them, they will continue 
their motion ; but a boy can divert the power, and 
in an instant the whole place will be as silent as 
the grave. The change has been wrought by the 
action of a law of mind upon a law of matter. If 
we recognize the possibility of the cooperation 
between the two spheres, our difficulty vanishes. 
Nature is uniform, but in no respect more than in 
this, that it always responds to the influence of 
mind. The will of man can change the current of a 
river, can divert the lightning in mid-heaven, can 
stop bodies which left to themselves would continue 
to fall. The law of inertia says that a body shall 
always remain in the place where it is unless moved 
upon by an outside body ; but mind can at any 
time determine when that motion from the outside 
shall be applied. The objection ignores one of the 
commonest facts in our mortal life, namely, that 
the sphere of mind is above that of matter and has 
dominion over it. The uniformity of the world of 
matter is unquestioned ; the freedom of the realm 
of mind is equally beyond question. If a child 
could ask his father to shut off the power by which 
ten thousand spindles are kept in motion and the 
request could be granted without any break in the 



PRAYER 225 

established order of that factory, another child may- 
ask a greater Father for some similar blessing, and 
the granting of the request would be no violation 
of the uniformity of nature. This objection rests 
upon an unfounded assumption, and upon a failure 
to observe a class of facts which are among the 
commonest in human experience. Familiar things 
are often the least studied. Their nearness pre- 
vents their having the influence which belongs to 
them. Cooperation between the higher and lower 
worlds is as common as any phenomenon which 
has ever been observed, and that cooperation is a 
conclusive answer to the objection that prayer is a 
violation of the order of the universe. 

What light does the Fatherhood of God 
throw upon the subject of prayer? It Fatherhood 
illuminates all its darkness. It shows ^^'^^'^^y®^- 
that prayer is not the effort of a man to get the 
better of the universe, or to induce Him who has 
ordered things aright to change them in response 
to the whim of one who does not know what is 
best. It is not continual pleading for things which 
are grudingly granted because of perpetual teasing. 
It is something far nobler and more satisfying. 
Prayer is intercourse between the child and the 
Father of his spirit. If God is truly represented 
by that word Father, then there is no time and no 
place in which He may not be approached by His 



226 THE AGE OF FAITH 

children ; and His eagerness to listen will be in pro- 
portion to the greatness of their need. We must 
keep close to our principle, that to understand 
what Fatherhood means in God we have only to 
multiply by infinity what it means in man. If the 
truest human father is anxious to be helpful to 
the child who longs for him, who can measure the 
eagerness of the Divine Father to respond to 
the appeal of the child whose need is always 
before Him? Human parents are often swayed 
by their feelings ; they are fallible ; they do not 
always understand their children ; they are limited 
by physical conditions ; they become nervous and 
petulant. Not so the perfect Father. Every hu- 
man being is a child of God ; therefore all may 
be sure that they will find hospitality when they 
turn to the Father who is in heaven. 

Where may we pray ? Wherever our Father 
is. Where is He ? He pervades the universe. 
He transcends it as the spirit of a man transcends 
his body ; and j^et He is nigh to us, even in our 
hearts. No cathedral shrine, no sanctuary of mar- 
ble, can imprison Him. He is in the solitude of 
the desert, in the forecastle of a ship, on the sick- 
bed, where all that the sufferer can do is to close 
the eyes and commune with the God who is nearer 
than hands and feet. His presence will be real- 
ized wherever there is an open mind and a rever- 
ent spirit. 



PRAYER 227 

Fatherhood shows that prayer on the part of the 
child is often and properly petition, and that it 
is just as frequently and just as properly without 
petition. Common usage has limited the word 
" prayer " to asking for something. That is the 
result of the inability of the mind to see more than 
one side of a thing at a time. 

Because when men prayed they asked for favors, it 
was presumed that that was all there was in prayer ; 
but at other times they have rendered praise and 
held silent and devout communion. The phrase, 
*' the practice of the presence of God," is one of 
the best definitions of prayer, but it also includes 
petition. 

In every home the child goes to his father for 
the things which he desires, and in proportion as 
he realizes that his father is noble and good, it will 
be impossible for him to ask from him anything 
that is unworthy. One who had always been the 
soul of honor, who despised duplicity, would never 
be approached by his child with a request for some- 
thing, to give which would require dishonesty. 

If we ask anything according to His will, we are 
told that He will grant it, and His will is but the 
expression of His nature. Anything which would 
require injustice is not in accordance with His 
wiU. But we are limited at the best, and our 
knowledge of what is right and true often fails. 



228 THE AGE OF FAITH 

What then ? Fatherhood teaches that the ear of 
God is always open to our requests, and that we 
are to go to Him for the things which we think 
will be best, and He will do for us what is actually 
best. The answer will sometimes be a granting 
and sometimes a denial of the request. A son 
desires to make an investment of money. The 
father refuses. The next day the boy learns that 
if he had been allowed to do as he wished, he 
would have lost all. The father has answered his 
prayer with something better than he was asked 
to give. A girl begs her mother to be permitted 
to play in a certain house. The mother declines. 
She is broken-hearted at the refusal, but later 
learns that within those walls one is dying of a 
contagious disease, and knows that her mother has 
been better to her than she asked. We answer 
the prayers of those nearest and dearest to us by 
giving to them that which we think to be best; 
God answers the petitions of His children by giv- 
ing that which He knows to be best. When there 
is a realization of the Fatherhood of God, prayer 
will be unforced and natural, and there will be no 
doubt concerning the answer, because the purpose 
of the Father to promote the welfare of His chil- 
dren is at the heart of the idea of Fatherhood. 

But why, then, should we pray ? If God knows, 
what need of our asking ? Keep to the analogy of 



PRAYER 229 

the home, and this difficulty will go with the 
others. Fathers, when they know what 

. . Why Pray? 

their children want, do not always antici- 
pate their wishes ; they often wait for the request 
to be proffered. Intercourse between parent and 
child brings them nearer to each other. God does 
not require to be informed concerning our desires, 
but we need the privilege of telling Him. " But 
the things which I most earnestly seek are denied 
me. How can I believe in prayer ? " A return 
question will answer that inquiry. Do we not 
often find it necessary to decline to accede to the 
wishes of those whom we love simply because we 
love them — and when we know that it is impos- 
sible for them to understand our motives ? We 
seek their good. They must trust and wait. 
" What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt 
know hereafter," is as true in the relation of par- 
ent and child, in every home, as of the relation 
of human children to the Father of all. 

What, then, should be the relation of the child 
to his Father ? One of perfect freedom ; but also 
that of one always seeking to know, and to be in 
harmony with his Father's will. When the child 
seeks the same things as his Father, there is har- 
mony between them. We are free to ask whatever 
we desire, but in proportion as we appreciate that 
we are not children of atoms but children of God, 



230 THE AGE OF FAITH 

conformity to His purpose will be our constant 
aspiration and knowledge of His will our endless 
study. 

For what may we ask ? This question has al- 
Forwhat ready been answered in another form. 
^*^* We are not wise. We can see but a little 

way beyond our wishes and ambitions. We are 
led upward and onward by slow and painful steps. 
Naturally we think that that is best which we most 
desire. Is there no possibility of true prayer for 
those who are earnest but mistaken? If God is 
our Father, we may go to Him with whatever re- 
quest is in our hearts, and freely ask for whatever 
we believe He would think best. " Ah ! but 
what if He refuses ? " There is only one reply to 
that question, and happy the person who has learned 
to accept it as final. God's refusals are always be- 
neficent answers. Few men have lived long with- 
out being quite as grateful for the things which the 
Father has denied as for what He has granted 
them. That which seems essential to happiness or 
welfare to-day, to-morrow we may find would have 
been our ruin. That for which the heart seems 
breaking to-day, if it were possessed would break 
the heart to-morrow. Few would be willing to be 
Providence for themselves. It is better to trust 
to chance or fate than to try to dictate or deter- 
mine what shall befall us. Fatherhood teaches 



PRAYER 231 

that there is no chance or fate ; that the desire 
of not one earnest heart is ever lost ; and that a 
response from infinite Love is always given to 
every request. God's refusals are always lasting 
benedictions. 

But is conformity to the Divine will possible on 
the earth? May those who are weak, fallible, un- 
worthy, hope ever to reach the state in which they 
may be sure that they ask according to that will ? 
If pressed to an answer I should say : It is possi- 
ble for human beings to reach that condition be- 
cause Jesus reached it, and He was the typical man. 
But if the question is pushed farther, and I am 
asked. Have you ever known any person who had 
reached that altitude ? I should have to answer, 
I have not. " The fullness of the stature of Christ " 
is far above and beyond those who have yielded to 
sin, or who feel the impulses of an evil heredity. 
Not one of the disciples attained that sinless state. 
The greatest of them said : " This one thing I do, 
I press toward the mark." The examples of the 
saints in all ages show that the common experience 
is one of struggle, darkness, conflict, doubt, and 
progress by slow and painful growth. Conformity 
to the will of God is a high and splendid ideal. It 
will be realized some time, since our Father would 
never set before any an impossible task. What- 
ever He asks must be within the bounds of possi- 



232 THE AGE OF FAITH 

bility. Dante could not have been altogether 
wrong when he placed the state of the " perfected 
will " on the heights of the heavenly life. For that 
all are bidden to aspire, remembering that the 
quest is not hopeless ; that they do not, like those 
who sought the Holy Grail, " follow wandering 
fires, lost in the quagmire ; " but they seek some- 
thing which has been realized by one man, and is 
some time to be the gracious inheritance of all men. 
To conclude, then. Since man is of the nature 
of God, and since God is manifested in humanity 
and man is the image of God, intercourse between 
them is natural and inevitable. That intercourse 
is what is called prayer. As the will of the child 
becomes conformed to the will of the Father, he 
seeks only those things which are in harmony with 
the Father's purposes, and realizes that his prayers 
are answered even when the specific thing asked 
for is withheld. But most men walk in the dark ; 
know not what is best ; are swayed by impulses ; 
insist that they must have what they most want. 
All these are taught both by the discipline of 
apparent refusal and by the realization of greater 
benefit, that the purpose of the Father is always 
one of blessing ; that no prayer ever fails of a re- 
sponse, and that He is often kindest and most 
loving when He denies that which is most eagerly 
sought. 



X 

PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 

The question as to the meaning and the duration 
of the suffering which follows wrong-doing has 
been a subject of inquiry from the earliest times. 
It has been an occasion of the deepest anxiety, 
and sometimes of dark and troubled thoughts. In 
the earlier years of this century, in many parts of 
the world, there was a reaction from current and 
severe forms of theological teaching which seri- 
ously threatened the usefulness of the Church. 

In the last analysis, the majority of intelligent 
people trust their instincts, or rather "their 
hearts," when dealing with the most perplexing 
problems, and in the end, they are usually justified. 
The ultimate question, when such subjects are ap- 
proached, is not what is written, even in the Bible, 
or what is taught in any school, however sacred, 
but rather what writing or teaching coincides with 
the voice of the heart, when it speaks its inmost 
convictions. 

Few positions in religious thought are abandoned 
because they are proved to be false, but many have 



234 THE AGE OF FAITH 

been left behind because, in moments of illumina- 
tion, men have seen that they could not be true. 
To some this method of reasoning may seem like 
trifling with momentous realities, but it is not 
trifling, — it is the method which common people, 
untrained in systematic investigation, must always 
adopt ; and, after all, it is the best way. No one 
who is true to himself ever goes wrong. The heart 
has as many rights in this world as the head. The 
elemental truths, those which have most to do with 
life, are not made more authoritative by prolonged 
intellectual processes. They are simply discerned. 
Sight is ultimate. Opinions concerning the results 
of wrong-doing, even among those who most truly 
represent the churches, are not the same that they 
were a few years ago. The change is not the re- 
sult of more thorough study of the Bible, but rather 
the yielding to feelings which before had been 
held in silence. After all labored expositions of 
Scripture, after all analogies drawn from nature, 
after all the deductions of logic, the heart, " like a 
man in wrath," rises and says, " I have felt," and 
with most that is the final and convincing word. 
The " everlasting Yea " is spoken by the heart. 
By the heart of course is meant the whole man 
asserting himself after seeing rather than specu- 
lating. 

The popular doctrine of punishment for sin has 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 235 

gone down before the intuitions of those who have 
simply felt that it could not be true. A conserva- 
tive theological professor, riding on an omnibus in 
London, looked into a public house and saw the 
place crowded with women as well as men, women 
with babies in their arms, women giving the little 
ones drink from their glasses. He looked and 
pondered, and finally said, " It is such sights as 
these that undermine all our theories about future 
punishment." ' Did he ever again teach the doc- 
trine as he had taught it before ? I know not. 
Soon afterward he entered into the brighter light. 
But his remark reveals the process by which the 
change in the interpretation of this doctrine has 
come about. 

In England and Scotland the severer forms of this 
teaching have almost disappeared ; not because of 
more thorough study of Scripture, but because the 
awful congestion of population, with its attendant 
miseries, has convinced the majority of Christian 
thinkers that the old interpretations were too small 
for the near and terrible facts of human life. 

The subject is difficult for many reasons, chief 
among which, perhaps, is the dogmatic Difficulties 
spirit in which it has so often been ap- ^ *^^ ^^^• 
proached on both sides. It has been presented as 
a truth concerning which there could not be two 
opinions. Those whose hearts have cried out in 



236 THE AGE OF FAITH 

anguish against statements whicli they could not 
believe have been treated as if they were hardly 
worthy of Christian recognition. The result has 
been that thousands have long disbelieved what 
they have been taught and simply concealed their 
unbelief. On the other hand, the advocates of 
what is called Universal Salvation, in an imperious 
and equally dogmatic spirit, have refused to see 
that honest and able men could never hold such 
doctrines unless there were in them some elements 
of truth. They have been equally omniscient and 
denunciatory on the other side. Such methods of 
treating any subject result in controversy and ac- 
rimony, in the assertion and recrimination which 
always conceal truth and sever those who should 
be united in its quest. 

Behind such themes, in the nature of things, 
always lies a background of mystery. The limi- 
tations of revelation are often misunderstood. It 
does not bring positive knowledge concerning all 
subjects ; it offers only so much light concerning 
any subject as men need to live by. Systems of 
theology are necessary for all who think. They 
are the means by which individuals classify their 
thoughts, but the system of one should never be 
regarded as essential to accurate thinking by an- 
other. We must try to harmonize knowledge, but 
at last we find that all of truth which the wisest 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 237 

have had is a series of glimpses. Not infrequently 
it has been found impossible to harmonize those 
indistinct yet individually trustworthy glimpses of 
great truths. God's dealings with men, like His 
method in the universe, quickly lead into dark- 
ness. We try to project our sight into that dark- 
ness, and fail. It is foolish to seek a basis for posi- 
tive statements concerning what limited beings 
never can know. Everlasting and infinite are only 
like X in the algebraic equation. Assertions as to 
what they stand for are exhibitions of ignorance 
or egotism. 

This subject lies within a sphere of which wide 
and sure knowledge is impossible, but glimpses are 
possible, and from the little which is seen, it is 
proper to form opinions concerning what is unseen. 
It should be remembered, however, that opinions 
never have the value, or obligation, of truth which 
is beyond reasonable debate. When these facts 
are considered, this subject will be approached with 
more wisdom and less recrimination. It can be 
settled by reference to no passage of Scripture, and 
to the authority of no council and of no Church 
Fathers. 

There is not now, and there never has been, unan- 
imity of opinion on the subject of the na- ^.« 

^ i- J Diflterences 

ture, the duration, and the results of wrong- ^^ ^v^oxo^. 
doing. Earnest and noble thinkers have acknow- 



238 THE AGE OF FAITH 

ledged the Dantean horror of the views which they 
have preached, and reverently and honestly said, in 
spite of the protest of their hearts, that they have 
accepted such views and bowed to them simply be- 
cause they believed them to be the clear teaching 
of revelation. Others have taken counsel of their 
hearts alone, and sometimes have omitted to study 
with equal care the facts of nature and life. 

In earlier days in the Church, this discussion 
resolved itself into a question of the etymology 
of words in the English translation of the Scrip- 
tures alone. The common faith of mediaeval times, 
probably with substantial accuracy, was conveyed 
by the artists. Their horrible caricatures of God 
and man, when man in full view of the Almighty 
was represented as burning in quenchless fire, are 
familiar to all who have visited the Italian galler- 
ies and cemeteries. They were not essentially dif- 
ferent from the pictures of Puritan preachers of 
the school of Jonathan Edwards, and of Roman 
Catholic preachers in this country also. 

Without attempting a historical review of the 
Causes of broadening of ideas on this subject, it is 
opSn^on enough to say that during the last twenty- 

this Subject. ^ j i i r* . 

live years the change irom severer to 
more humane interpretations has been evident and 
swift. It has been due to many causes. I will 
mention four. 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 239 

First among these is the greater freedom which 
has been exercised in the expression of convictions. 
The larger liberty of utterance has exerted its in- 
fluence on the thinking of the masses of the people. 

The second cause has been the interpretation 
which distinguished scholars have given to the 
word translated "eternal." It is now quite gen- 
erally regarded as having no relation to time, but 
only to the state following death. Then eternal 
punishment does not necessarily mean punishment 
without end, but punishment in the state which 
succeeds death. If eternal does not of necessity 
mean everlasting, then it may end ; and then what 
is called punishment may be something other and 
better than has been supposed. 

Another and more potent cause of the change in 
sentiment which we are considering is the influence 
of the doctrine of the immanence of God. If God 
in a certain real sense is in every man, then He 
cannot everlastingly hate Himself, even in the poor 
manifestation of Himself in a human creature. 

But perhaps the most powerful of all the forces 
which have worked in the direction of what is 
called the " larger hope " has been the influence 
of the poets. Robert Burns, with his homely but 
convincing songs, moulded the theology of the com- 
mon people more than any theologian of Scotland, 
not excepting Calvin. 



240 THE AGE OF FAITH 

But the three great poets of the larger hope were 
Browning, Tennyson, and Whittier. When esti- 
mated by their influence on the thought of English- 
speaking people, they must be recognized as the 
preeminent preachers of this century. They voiced 
the deepest convictions of the clearest and best 
minds of their time. They will not be understood 
if they are regarded as mere artists in words. 
They are far more. They studied the Christian 
revelation long and reverently, and then opened 
wide the doors of their souls for the spirit of God 
to show them the true interpretation of what had 
been written and what was being lived. 

Browning's faith has been confessed in his poem 
" Apparent Failure," and in " The Ring and the 
Book." From the first I quote as follows : — 

** It 's wiser being good than bad ; 

It 's safer being meek than fierce : 
It 's fitter being sane than mad. 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 

That, after Last, returns the First, 
Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 

That what began best, can't end worst, 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst." 

From " The Ring and the Book " I quote ; — 

" Else I avert my face, nor follow him 
Into that sad, obscure, sequestered state 
Where God unmakes but to remake, the soul — 
He else made fii'st in vain : which must not be." 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 241 

The faith of Tennyson was confessed in words with 
which the world is more familiar : — 

" yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 

*' That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
That not one life shall be destroyed. 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete." 

Whittier was equally clear and positive, without 
being dogmatic. His " Eternal Goodness " has 
been more widely read and had a greater influence 
than any sermon ever preached and, I think I 
may without extravagance say, than any " Confes- 
sion of Faith " ever composed in America. His 
faith was clearly indicated in the stanza : — 

" Thft wrong that pains my soul below 
I dare not throne above : 
I know not of His hate, — I know 
His goodness and His love." 

I have thus tried to trace the process by which 
current views concerning this subject have been 
changed from what they were fifty years ago to 
what they are to-day. That there is anything like 
uniformity of opinion on this subject, even in so- 
called " orthodox " circles, no one would imagine 
who is well informed and without prejudice. 



242 THE AGE OF FAITH 

Where the Scriptures are not so clear and positive 
as to make variety of opinion disloyalty to them, 
it is the right and duty of all who believe in the 
sanctity of revelation to seek for themselves such 
conclusions as will best convince the reason and 
satisfy the heart. 

Is there any common element in the theories by 
The Com- wliich attempts have been made to explain 
meutinaii tlic fact that sufferiuo; follows wrong;- 

Theories of ^ . 

ofPenaT*"^ doiug ? No rcasouablc man will deny 
Suffering. ^]^^^ g'^^ 'g ^lyyays and everywhere, sooner 
or later, followed by suffering on the part of the 
one who commits the sin. As this fact has been 
studied, have the conclusions had any points in 
common ? They have. That common element is 
the belief that such suffering is retributive ; that 
it grows by a necessity, in the nature of things, 
from the wrong w4iich has been done. Thus far 
all students of the Scriptures and of human life 
agree. There are differences of opinion as to the 
duration of the consequences of wrong-doing, some 
holding that they are brief, some that they continue 
until they have accomplished their object, and 
others that they never end, but nearly all believe 
that misery grows out of sin, as a plant from its 
seed. 

The etymology of retribution suggests the idea 
that wrong-doing reacts on the one who chooses 



PUNISHMEXT OK DISCIPLINE 243 

to do wrong. Eetribution is an evil deed reacting 
and so causing misery. Primarily it has a vital 
rather than a judicial significance. 

A few persons, and they are very few, interpret 
what is called punishment as something arbitrarily 
inflicted by the Almighty, and without any vital 
connection with the wrong that is done. The num- 
ber of persons who hold this view is so small that 
it hardly requires more than mention at this time. 
Retribution is the natural and inevitable fruitage of 
wrong-doing. It is the idea which was in the mind 
of James when he said that " sin, when it is full- 
grown, bringeth forth death." ^ The misery which 
always grows out of thinking and doing wrong is 
retributive. That is a process in the natural order. 

What is penal suffering designed to accomplish ? 
Is it to manifest the holiness of God ? what is 

Penal Suffer- 

Is it to express the sanctity of the moral i°& intended 

^ •^ to accom- 

law ? Is it simply a natural conse- ^^^^^' 
quence ? Does it manifest the Divine Fatherhood ? 
Or does it combine some or all of these objects? 
These questions are vital in theology ; and a ra- 
tional answer to them is essential to the mental 
peace of every thinking man. In the end the in- 
quiry comes to be : Is there any basis for Opti- 
mism, when the awful mysteries which surround 
such suffering are considered ? 

^ James i. 15. 



244 THE AGE OF FAITH 

These are the questions which mothers, as they 
rock their cradles, ask with far more intensity than 
philosophers and theologians ; and may we not add 
that this is a department of inquiry in which a 
mother's intuition is more trustworthy than any 
purely intellectual process, either of interpretation 
or speculation? 

Does the suffering which follows wrong-doing, 
as a shadow follows a figure, manifest the holiness 
of God and His hatred of sin ? If we have cor- 
rect views as to what end that suffering is intended 
to accomplish, then the reply is " Yes," but the 
subject has often been so presented as to obscure 
rather than to exhibit the holiness of the Deity. 
Does it express horror of sin ? Surely. But hor- 
ror can never be an end in itself. The exhibition 
of Divine horror at wrong-doing is not a worthy ex- 
planation of penal suffering. What shall be said 
of the sufferings which follow mistakes ? Of those 
which are purely matters of heredity, and for which 
the agent is not responsible ? A " child of the 
Ghetto," who chose neither father nor mother, nor 
place of birth, nor being born at all, yielding to 
the tendencies within him, violates an eternal and 
universal principle of right. But he never heard 
of any such principle. What results ? Suffering, 
perhaps as intense and long continued as if he had 
acted in the light. Is that suffering a manifesta- 



pu:n^ishment or discipline 245 

tion of Divine horror against sin ? Whose sin ? 
That of the one who did the wrong, or of the be- 
ing who allowed such a creature to be born ? If 
the common idea of punishment is imported into 
such suffering, and it is insisted that the man is 
being punished for doing what he did not know 
to be wrong, neither Divine horror nor Divine 
justice appear, but something strangely like a 
travesty of righteousness. 

If there is no other solution of this problem, it 
will never be solved, for there is no special need 
of the manifestation of Divine horror for its own 
sake ; and if it is manifested for any end outside 
itself, it must be for the welfare of man, and thus 
it becomes remedial rather than punitive. 

" But it is the punishment which wickedness 
merits." That it merits condemnation is beyond 
doubt, but that such condemnation should be 
manifest in long-continued wrath, unmixed with 
thoughts of benefit, is a cruel blasphemy. I will 
go as far as any one in insisting on the guilt of 
willful wrong-doing, but the hj^pothesis that the 
sorrow and pain of the universe are chiefly merited 
punishment is without justification. Because sin 
should be condemned, it does not follow that the 
sinner should suffer without hope, but it does fol- 
low that he should be saved. 

I now venture a proposition which it is easy to 



246 THE AGE OF FAITH 

verify. The idea of punishment is essentially bar- 
Punishment baric, and foreign to all that is known 

as such a (>it-v« x/*t • -i 

Failure. ot the Deity, it i am met at once with 
the reply that it is a Biblical idea, the answer is, 
A scriptural word it surely is, but a scriptural 
idea it is not. The signification of the word in the 
Bible must be learned from its use in the Bible. 
Therefore I say the idea is not scriptural, since 
there, as will be seen later, it suggests chastise- 
ment with a view to reformation. 

If the history of government has demonstrated 
anything, it is the failure of punishment as a means 
of preventing crime. It is a serious question how 
far it is a protection against evil-doers. That it 
does thus protect is the only ground on which it 
can be justified. In those states where punish- 
ment is severest and swiftest, crime is suppressed, 
but not eradicated. Murder is nearly if not quite 
as frequent where the death penalty is rigorously 
executed as where it is unknown. Prisons be- 
come schools of crime from which criminals grad- 
uate in regular succession. The statistics of the 
average prison show that most of those who are dis- 
charged are soon back again. But how is it where 
the prison goes and the reformatory takes its place ? 
The moral instructor in the Reformatory at Con- 
cord, Mass., informed me that 80 per cent, of 
those committed to that institution graduate from 



PUNISHMENT OB, DISCIPLINE 247 

the criminal class into the ranks of good citizens, 
while of those committed to the prisons about the 
same proportion become habitual criminals. 

That punishment is a failure and reformation 
a possibility is the lesson of the contrast between 
prisons and reformatories. But it may be said 
that the state should express its detestation of 
crime. Why should it do so ? For its own sake ? 
That would accomplish no good purpose. For the 
sake of the culprit ? It would not benefit him 
simply to see an exhibition of vengeance. 

Punishment is contrary to the true idea of the 
family. In the household all the members are 
mutually helpful. The strong bear the infirmities 
of the weak, and do not seek to please themselves. 
A father who, because his child was a wrong-doer, 
should endeavor only to satisfy justice would win 
neither sympathy nor respect. In family life, suf- 
fering may often have to be inflicted, but never in 
order that the parent may manifest his wrath or 
justice, but always that the one doing wrong may 
be reclaimed and the innocent protected. What 
has been proven to be a failure in the adminis- 
tration of human affairs, and to be foreign to the 
divine ideal of domestic life, can with difficulty be 
supposed to hold an important place in the gov- 
ernment of God. 

The word " punishment " is common in the Eng- 



248 THE AGE OF FAITH 

lish translation of the Bible, but its meaning must 
Punishment alwajs be interpreted in the light of what 

in the New . i t p /^ i a 

Testament, is revealed oi (jrod. A mere question of 
etymology should never be allowed to outweigh 
the whole Christian revelation concerning the 
character of the Almighty. When the word " pun- 
ishment " is used in the New Testament, it is always 
something administered by the Father, and there- 
fore of necessity, not for its own sake, but in the 
interests of love, since God is love. If a perfect 
human father would not inflict suffering on his 
child to show his wrath against the wrong-doer, 
or to show his own goodness, although he would 
do it to promote the welfare of the family or of 
any individual member of it, surely the Heavenly 
Father cannot be supposed to multiply misery for 
the purpose of satisfying Himself or manifesting 
His holiness, although He would prevent it, or even 
ordain it, if that were the only or the best means 
of achieving a beneficent result. Paul represents 
God as saying, " Vengeance belongeth unto me ; 
I will recompense, saith the Lord." -^ How shall 
that be interpreted ? It must be interpreted in 
the light of the Christian revelation of God, who 
was manifest in Christ to save men. What that 
passage means is this : Fallible men, sinners them- 
selves, should not presume to inflict punishment on 
^ Romans xii. 19. 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 249 

tlieir fellow men, because they cannot know all the 
circumstances which have led to their action. Only 
God knows those circumstances, and He " will 
recompense " or adjust according to His wisdom. 

The same method of interpretation is required 
in the reading of such a passage as the twenty-fifth 
chapter of Matthew. The wicked go into " eter- 
nal punishment." What does the word " punish- 
ment " mean there ? What it always does in such 
circumstances. Three questions may be asked : 
Which is niore harmonious with what is known of 
God, to think that the word implies the going 
away to endure vengeance which has no end but its 
own satisfaction ? or the putting of those who have 
sinned where their evil will hurt no one but them- 
selves ? or the permission of suffering for the sake 
of bringing the culprits to themselves, as is always 
the case in a worthy earthly home ? 

If punishment as the expression of anger or ab- 
stract justice is a failure in the state, and is never 
found in an ideal family, and if it is contradictory 
of all that is known of the character of God as re- 
vealed in Christ, then what end is penal suffering 
ordained to accomplish ? We cannot think that 
a fact so stupendous and universal as the inevita- 
ble connection between sin and misery is without 
significance, and without justification in the Divine 
order. AVhy is the fact of retribution so deeply 
embedded in the nature of things ? 



250 THE AGE OF FAITH 

I will endeavor to answer this question in the 
Penal Suffer- lig^^t of fatlierliood. Divine Fatherhood 
piltedlby IS nothing else than perfect love. Hu- 
man fatherhood is an inadequate but true 
expression of the same love. That which is simply 
inadequate never contradicts that of which it is a 
perfect expression. A ray of light is an inade- 
quate revelation of the sun ; it is true as far as it 
goes, and only fails because it is not large enough. 
What the universal splendor is to one ray of light, 
that the Divine Fatherhood is to human fatherhood. 
The love is the same, — in one case it is finite, and 
in the other infinite. What would violate love in 
man would violate it in God. Why does a parent 
allow, or even compel, his child to suffer when he 
does wrong? There are only two answers to this 
inquiry, and they are parts of one : in order that 
the child may be brought to a better mind ; and 
in order that the household may be protected from 
baleful influence and example. Anything else 
would be barbarism. Often the sight of the suf- 
fering hurts the parent more than the child, but 
he allows it, not for his own satisfaction surely, 
but in order that his child may learn to hate evil, 
and be brought to realize that in righteousness 
alone is welfare and happiness. The end of suf- 
fering, so far as it is caused or permitted in the 
family, is the welfare of the child and the family. 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 251 

In other words, in tlie home what is called punish- 
ment is always discipline ; that is, it seeks to save 
the one who does wrong. When we rise from the 
single point in the circle to the great arc, from 
man to God, we face a question which has troubled 
and puzzled thoughtful souls in all ages : What is 
the meaning of the suffering which results from 
individual wrong-doing? Hindus and Buddhists 
can only say that the man who suffers has existed 
and sinned in a previous state. His miseries are 
not only the result of what he does here, but of 
what he was and did in a preexistent life. The 
mediaeval answer was an echo of the earlier pagan- 
ism, which represented the deities as subject to 
passions, and quick to resent insults. Human 
beings were punished, and punishment was the in- 
fliction of Divine wrath. The offended Deity took 
pleasure in the consciousness that the creature 
who had dared to disobey received his deserts. 
This teaching has not entirely disappeared. It 
was vividly portrayed by the art of the Middle 
Ages, and found its most awful literary interpreta- 
tion in Dante's " Inferno." 

But in these later days there has been a real 
return to Christ ; not such a return as delights 
in saying beautiful things about Him and paying 
compliments to His divinity, — which are like the 
hanging of tawdry ornaments on the crucifix, — 



252 THE AGE OF FAITH 

but such a return as is realized in the attempt 
to think of God, man, and the universe, of time 
and eternity, as Jesus thought of them. With 
Jesus, the Sovereign was always the Father and the 
Father the Sovereign. Fatherhood was the only 
interpretation of God or the universe which our 
Master used. 

Let us now apply His method to the problem in 
hand. Would God the Father permit pain simply 
to show His power ? That is incredible. Would 
He allow millions to suffer simply because He 
was angrjT^, however much, from a human point of 
view, that anger may have been merited ? That 
is incredible. Would He not both permit and 
use suffering, if by that means the welfare and the 
happiness of individuals and of the race could 
be promoted ? The analogy of human fatherhood 
answers that question in the affirmative. We con- 
clude that what is commonly called punishment for 
sin is never in this world, or in any other, punish- 
ment in the human sense, but always such chastise- 
ment as is found in every true human home. Pun- 
ishment as an expression of wrath, or enmity with 
no remedial purpose beyond, is a relic of barba- 
rism. It carries with it the content of vengeance. 
It is the expression of anger, of passion, or at 
best of cold justice. I am aware that this use of 
the word will be challenged, but the challenge can 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 253 

easily be met. It may be affirmed that penal suf- 
fering is the Divine holiness expressing its hatred 
of sin. That is undoubtedly true, but if it stops 
with such expression, it is not holiness but selfish- 
ness. If, on the other hand, that expression of 
holiness is used or permitted in order that the 
sinner may be made to hate his sin, then it is no 
more punishment but chastisement. 

The law of retribution is universal, and it must 
be everlasting. Wherever men do wrong, they will 
suffer, and that suffering is not a sign of wrath but 
of love, since it tends toward the realization on the 
part of man of his duty as a child of God. 

On any other hypothesis, what is known as penal 
suffering has no justification except the arbitrary 
will of the Almighty, and such an hypothesis is 
an impeachment both of His justice and His love. 
But if penal sufferings are disciplinary, the most 
perplexing of mysteries becomes a manifestation 
of infinite and deathless affection. To deny that 
penal suffering is always and solely for purposes 
of salvation is to deny the love of God ; to assert 
positively that any will be able to defeat His re- 
demptive purpose is to affirm that God's power is 
limited. But these are subjects which must be con- 
sidered by themselves. At present I am dealing 
only with the former. 

As I survey human life and interpret the events 



254 THE AGE OF FAITH 

in the history of individuals and the race in the 
Optimism light of the Divine Fatherhood, I see 
still long ages of darkness, strife, blood- 
shed, and woes unutterable. I see wars end- 
ing in the disappearance of whole nations, and 
sorrows around the heads of men and women as 
thick and black as thunderheads around an Alpine 
crest ; but I am not disheartened nor discour- 
aged, for I am sure that no man ever lived who 
was not infinitely precious in the Father's sight, 
and if any suffer, it is only that the purposes of 
the Father may be accomplished. When awful 
horrors sweep over nations, again I am not de- 
spondent, for those horrors, which sometimes seem 
the coronation of cruelty, are permitted that na- 
tions as well as individuals may be taught that in 
righteousness alone is abiding prosperity. The 
year is an analogy of the life of man on the earth. 
The cold of winter, the rains of spring, the heat 
and storms of summer, the chill of autumn, are 
essential to the glory of the year. Even so pain 
and heart-ache, tears and blood, remorse and de- 
spair, which always follow courses of wrong, are 
means by which imperfect and often animal tend- 
encies are eliminated, and the spirit of man is 
brought into the freedom and strength of a child 
of God. 

If one thinks of the Deity as an austere mon- 



PUXISHMEXT OR DISCIPLINE 255 

arch, having a care for His own honor but none for 
those to whom He has given being, optimism is 
impossible. For what shall we say as we think 
of our loved ones who have committed sins ? That 
splendid boy who yielded to an inherited tendency 
— what has become of him ? Those millions who 
with little light and mighty passions have gone 
wrong — what of them ? Those countless myriads 
who peopled the earth in ages past and had no 
clear motive to righteousness, since their percep- 
tion of God was dim, — is this all that can be said 
of them ; in torment they are exhibiting the glo- 
rious holiness of the Almighty in His hatred of 
sin ? Some may believe that, but, thank God, the 
number is not large. Rather, if we may for a mo- 
ment speak of God in anthropomorphic terms, let 
us think that His heart is burdened almost to the 
breaking as He says, " How earnestly have I longed 
that these ray children might be made fit for joy 
without a stroke of sorrow or pain, but they would 
not ! I must now leave them to the consequences 
of their own actions ; they must suffer terribly, but 
I have so ordered the universe that the tendency 
of suffering will be remedial. By pain their eyes 
will be opened to see the true wisdom ; by disap- 
pointment they will be taught to desire things 
which have permanent value ; by their own break- 
ing hearts they will learn how my heart yearns 



256 THE AGE OF FAITH 

over them. Thus, what they would not voluntarily 
learn, they will some time understand, and then 
they will even praise the hand that disciplined." 
With such an outlook, optimism is possible. What 
we call punishment is only the discipline by which 
the Father is seeking to bring all men to the stat- 
ure of the fullness of Christ. 

Thus the blear eye and the tipsy stagger of a 
drunkard ; the lassitude of a debauchee ; the sense 
of isolation in the heart of one who is dishonest ; 
the despair of those who have violated virtue ; the 
remorse which, like snakes on the Medusa head, 
bites into misery those who have betrayed truth or 
honor, however much they may pain us as we 
behold them, are signs of the deep remedial force 
in the nature of things, which has always been at 
work and always will be, and which, unless coun- 
teracted, will result some time in universal and 
immortal harmony. 

But this subject is so important and yet so con- 
Qti^gy fused that we must now take up other 

R-SaS closely related questions which are not 
essential, but which, in popular thought, 
are inextricably bound up with our study. Our 
conclusions rest on the assumption, which few 
would doubt, that retribution is a natural law, that 
it is universal in its sweep, and that it is a mani- 
festation of the beneficence which pervades the 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 257 

universe. This law must continue its operation as 
Ions: as one free ao:ent violates the moral order. 
Nothino' that has been said should be allowed to 
obscure that fact. Neither justice nor love would 
be honored, if one soul were allowed to escape 
the action of this law. My sole contention has 
been that the sting in retribution is ordained to 
be remedial and restorative rather than punitive 
and vengeful. 

" Retribution will continue as long as sin en- 
dures." Is that all? Does not observa- how Long 
tion show that suffering lasts longer than bution con- 

• o T 1 1 1 • o tinue ? 

sm ? It does beyond any question, oome 
of the consequences of evil conduct seem to be 
unaffected by repentance. Forgiveness will not 
restore a hand that has been cut off, and it will not 
compensate for years of neglected spiritual growth. 
" There is therefore now no condemnation to them 
that are in Christ Jesus," but they may have a 
smaller spiritual capacity. " The blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanses from all sin," but it does not in an 
instant place the penitent roue, beside the pure in 
heart who have enjoyed the vision of God for half a 
century. Consequences of wrong-doing outlive the 
sinful act. If nature and history alone were stud- 
ied, the conclusion would be that penal suffering is 
out of all proportion to the unrighteous act. The 
eye that is put out can never be restored. The hand 



258 THE AGE OF FAITH 

that is cut off will never grow again. The mind that 
is uncultured in youth well-nigh loses the capability 
of culture. If a man commits a crime, the memory 
of it follows him to the grave ; if a woman sins 
against virtue, she is regarded as soiled, to the end 
of the chapter. " Nature never overlooks a mis- 
take," and makes no allowance for ignorance. The 
error of much of our theological teaching is found 
at this point. It supposes that there is an analogy 
rather than a contrast between the way of nature and 
human government, and the way of the household 
which is the method of grace. In nature, a wrong 
once done is done forever ; in the household, penal 
suffering lasts only as long as the sin. In the 
moral order, there are certain consequences which 
do not cease when the choice of evil is changed, 
but these consequences always tend toward the 
completion of the work which began when the first 
twinges of conscience were felt. In other words, 
they are redemptive and not punitive in their char- 
acter. 

Thus far the question of the duration of penal 
The Dura- Suffering has been only incidentally con- 

tion of Penal . ._, . ^ ... i . i 

Suffering. sidcrcd. I lic controvcrsial Spirit lu wliich 
the subject has usually been treated has tended to 
obscure what is far more important than the time- 
factor in the problem, viz., the fact of retribution 
itself. Some have gone so far as to declare that a 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 259 

belief in the endlessness of misery following sin is 
essential to the Christian character. A distin- 
guished New England preacher is reported re- 
cently to have made this astounding assertion. 
Then beHef, not in the Gospel, but in what some 
imagine will follow its rejection, is the distinguish- 
ing characteristic of Christianity. It will be long 
before many intelligent Christians will give assent 
to such teaching. The motive of such assertions 
is to impress evil-doers with the enormity of their 
courses. It has exactly the opposite effect. It 
hardens some and disgusts others. It leads to 
doubt of the justice and love of God. It diverts 
attention from the fact of retribution. Great harm 
is done when those who belong together separate 
on points which are not essential to the common 
cause. Endless and fruitless discussion about the 
duration of punishment has convinced no one, and 
has turned many away from the Church altogether. 
If emphasis had been placed on the fact that all 
who do wrong will suffer in proportion to the 
wrong which they have done, a momentous fact 
would receive adequate recognition. If in addition 
the other fact, that love must sometimes be austere 
and use severe measures in order to achieve a re- 
demptive purpose, had received worthy and care- 
ful expression, there would have been no revolt 
from the Church, because its doctrine on this sub- 



260 THE AGE OF FAITH 

ject would receive daily illustration in the disci- 
pline of the home. 

But the question presses for an answer. Can 
God be permanently defeated? Will the end of all 
things be a divided universe with the devil su- 
preme in one part and God in the other? After 
all these Christian centuries, must we get back to 
what is substantially Persian Dualism? If God 
cannot be defeated, then must we not believe that 
His redemptive agencies will at length be victori= 
ous, and every child of God come to himself and 
return to His Father ? Apparently that is the 
only possible conclusion, but here we are met by 
the mysterious fact of freedom. Every man is a 
free agent. He who is free cannot be compelled, 
even by the Almighty, without first suffering the 
destruction of his freedom. It is impossible to 
think that a man should ever lose the power of 
choice, for then he would cease to be virtuous ; and 
it is impossible to think that God can be defeated, 
for that would be to cease to believe in God, since 
a God who could be defeated would be no God, 
John Milton has a noble passage which may well 
be quoted here : — 

" O Father, gracious was that word which closed 
Thy sovereigTi sentence, that man should find grace, 
For which both heaven and earth shall high extol 
Thy praises, with the innumerable sound 
Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 261 

Encompass' d shall resound thee ever blest : 
For should man finally be lost, should man, 
Thy creature late so loved, thy youngest son, 
Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though join'd 
With his own folly ? that be from thee far. 
That far be from thee. Father, who art judge 
Of all things made, and judgest only right. 
Or shall the adversary thus obtain 
His end, and frustrate thine ? shall he fulfill 
His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught ; 
Or proud return, though to his heavier doom, 
Yet w^ith revenge accomplish'd, and to Hell 
Draw after him the whole race of mankind, 
By him corrupted ? or wilt thou thyself 
Abolish thy creation, and unmake. 
For him, what for thy glory thou hast made ? 
So should thy goodness and thy greatness both 
Be questioned and blasphemed without defense." 

But I am reminded that there Is another possi- 
bility. The end may be the spiritual death of the 
sinner. The wages of sin may be literal spiritual 
death. God may be victorious, but in the destruc- 
tion rather than in the renewal of those who have 
been wrong. In the universe none may long op- 
pose Him, for the reason that the seeds of evil have 
come to their fruitage in death. This is too large 
a subject to be discussed in this place. On this 
point it must suffice to say that that hypothesis is 
contrary to the whole spirit of this chapter. On 
that theory, there is no place for discipline. If 
that doctrine is true, then penal suffering is arbi- 



262 THE AGE OF FAITH 

trarily administered by God, who in His own time 
and way blots out of existence all who sin, — 
which violates the Christian revelation of the na- 
ture of God ; or penal suffering is only the con- 
sequence of wrong-doing, and has no end in itself, 
— which is contrary to what we have found to be 
the teaching of revelation and reason concerning 
what is called punishment. Many analogies seem 
to favor this theory, but they are not sufficient to 
justify so momentous a conclusion. Many buds 
fall and die ; much fruit never ripens ; there is no 
principle of restoration in a seed of death, but 
facts equally significant are found on the other side. 
With this mention I leave the hypothesis of the 
death of the soul, only adding that I am aware 
that it has not received the attention which many 
think it deserves. 

This is a question around which there has been, 
Is Repent' evcu within two decades, a great and need- 
b?e^after'' less coutrovcrsy. Happily that has ended. 

Death ? i«« 'ii •! t 

and it IS possible to consider dispassion- 
ately a subject about which certainty is impossible. 
Will there be an opportunity after death for any 
to repent ? So far as this is a question of Scrip- 
ture, the answer must be that it is not explicit 
on this point. Every man will reach such con- 
clusions as best satisf}^ his moral sense, and best 
harmonize all the facts in the case. No interpre- 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 263 

tatlon, however, can be justified which violates 
what is known of the moral character of God. 
" Will any repent beyond the grave ? " As a mat- 
ter of fact, no one knows. As a matter of specula- 
tion, the answer must be : If they continue free 
agents and consequently to have the power of 
choosing right or wrong, they may choose the 
right, and to do that is to repent. If any cease to 
be free, they cease to be virtuous and consequently 
cannot be fit for heaven, for a heaven of compul- 
sory goodness would be no heaven at all. Those 
who have died in the faith have natural ability to 
choose evil, and those who have died in their sins 
have the same kind of ability to forsake evil and 
to cleave to the good. This is not a question of 
revelation. It is simply one of probability. When 
we weigh probabilities, we are forced to such in- 
quiries as the following : Is it probable that the 
accident of death, which may be caused by a mis- 
take in medicine, by a snake's bite, by a falling 
tile, by an infinitesimal microbe, by slipping on 
the ice, should determine the condition of an 
immortal spirit? Is it probable that those who 
have been creatures of an evil heredity ; who 
have come into the world loaded with evil bias ; 
who were born with passions like fire ; who have 
had those passions stimulated by pernicious envi- 
ronment, and have seldom felt the inspirations 



264 THE AGE OF FAITH 

of finer ideals, simply by dying should be placed 
where henceforward no influence for good can pos- 
sibly aifect them ? Is it probable that those who 
have been born in barbarism, and whose days have 
been passed in darkness ; who have had little light 
and almost no motives toward purity ; who have 
even supposed that vice was virtue, and who have 
been taught that the gods could be pleased with 
such self-sacrifice as the immolation of all that is 
noble and pure, would never, never, never, even if 
their eyes should be opened, be permitted to choose 
the right which they might love if it were revealed 
to them ? Every person must answer these ques- 
tions for himself. I think that the most of the 
world would be found to answer them in the same 
way, if inmost convictions could once escape from 
the false feeling that any creed is ever binding 
which violates that which the heart in its moments 
of most intense hunger feels to be true. 

It is not reasonable to give to death such tre- 
mendous powers. On the hypothesis that death 
determines all, it becomes mightier than God. It 
raises an impassable barrier before the cross of 
Christ and says. Thus far shalt thou come and no 
farther ; to freedom it says. You may hold sway 
while men are in the flesh, but you shall not when 
they escape from the body ; to all motives of love 
and aspiration it says, Into my realm you shajl 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 265 

never come with your hope and your light. I can- 
not believe that death to such an extent is the 
arbiter of the destinies of the race. It is an 
awful fact. It shuts from our view much that we 
would know. It is presumptuous to be very posi- 
tive about what transpires within its frontiers, 
but it is not presumptuous to say that death, in 
God's universe of light and life, is not the supreme 
and all-controlling power. 

With a sense of utter inadequacy I have ap- 
proached this subject. No one lives long without 
realizing its difficulty, and no one who has any sense 
of the awfulness of sin will be willing to be dog- 
matic. The boundaries of knowledge are quickly 
reached. It is folly to dogmatize about infinity 
and eternity. It is such a terrible thing to be a 
sinner that no one would willingly utter one word 
which would diminish in the least the awful sanc- 
tions by which wrong-doing is surrounded. 

Whatever else may be thought to be true, this 
surely is beyond question : processes of restoration, 
however loving the motive behind them, will not 
work to their end until the last vestige of evil de- 
sire has been eliminated. What ages of suffering 
that may require ! How slowly the forces of right- 
eousness achieve their results in the sphere in 
which observation is possible I How long a time 
will be needed to purge the man of all his animal- 



266 THE AGE OF FAITH 

isms, his selfishness, his pride and vain ambition, 
and make him like unto the typical man, we 
cannot tell ; but this we do know, that, on the 
hypothesis that punishment is always disciplinary, 
the time which will elapse before the best of the 
children of men will reach the stature of the full- 
ness of Christ will be so long and the process so 
painful that no one would dare to make it an excuse 
for wrong-doing. 

It is difficult enough to imagine how long it will 
be before the saints of the earth will enter into their 
heritage. What the rebellious, the traitors, and 
the proud will require of terrible and long-contin- 
ued discipline must give us pause. 

I conclude by recapitulating the points which 
I have endeavored to treat reverently, as I surely 
have treated them earnestly, in this chapter. 

Both Scripture and reason indicate that every- 
where and forever wrong-doing will be attended by 
suffering. 

But that suffering is not the expression of ven- 
geance ; it is the means which the Eternal Father, 
according to a beneficent purpose, uses to create 
in His children a hatred of evil, and to bring 
them to realize His Fatherhood and their sonship. 
These processes of discipline will continue, if need 
be, for ages of ages, until the brute inheritance 
has disappeared and there is left nothing but pure 



J 



PUNISHMENT OR DISCIPLINE 267 

spirit, naturally able to clioose the evil, but mor- 
ally so absorbed and occupied with right and truth 
as to make it practically unconscious that there is 
a possibility of anything but conformity to love. 

Will any forever resist that discipline? We 
know not ; but from what we do know of man and 
God, it is difficult to understand how any can be 
willing to do so when the fullness of the Divine 
glory is revealed. 

The possibility, I must admit ; the probability, 
I doubt. But whatever the possibilities, when 
there is no clear word of revelation to the contrary, 
it is always not only our privilege, but our duty to 
hope for the best. And we do hope that somehow 
good will be the final goal ; that not one life will 
be destroyed or cast as rubbish to the void ; that 
somehow and some time, God will make the human 
pile complete, and bring all men to the fullness 
of the stature of His Son our Elder Brother ; and 
we believe that this hope has a basis in reason, 
in Scripture, and in the moral nature of man ; 
and that its full realization will be the consumma- 
tion of the Kingdom of God, the coronation of 
the Lamb, and the glorification of our redeemed 
humanity. 



XI 

THE IMMORTAL LIFE 

Other questions are quite as mysterious and dif- 
ficult of answer as that which concerns the presence 
and meaning of death, but no inquiry is quite so 
constant and imperative. A helpful book by a re- 
cent writer has for its title, " The Place of Death in 
Evolution." 1 Its object is to show that from every 
point of view, except that of human feelings, death 
is beneficent. But notwithstanding our theories 
on this subject, the fact remains that in all ages 
death has been regarded as the most constant, if not 
the most perplexing of mysteries. In the last analy- 
sis there is really only one great problem in the 
universe, but it is a problem with many factors, 
and includes suffering, sorrow, sin, and death. Hu- 
man faculties are so limited that the factors quickly 
become exaggerated into separate problems. The 
attitude of men toward death has always been 
substantially the same. This is evident from the 
history of the earliest times and, also, from the art 
of the most ancient nations. There have been 

^ Newman Smythe, D. D. 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 269 

progress and change in other things, but none in 
the general feelino: of the race toward death. As 
exceptional individuals become more spiritual, they 
are able to face it more intelligently and calmly ; 
but the inquiry as to its place in the universe is 
eager and world-wide, and earnest thinkers to-day 
are as much puzzled by the mystery of death as 
when the first man first looked upon the lifeless 
form of his brother man. There are three ways 
in which this subject is commonly approached, and 
they are typical, not only of present thought, but 
of what it always has been. 

The majority of people regard death as the most 
to be dreaded of conceivable events. It ^^^^j^ 
is an enemy. Art pictures it as a hid- 
eous fiend, who advances brandishing his ghastly 
spear, or as one of the Fates, whose remorseless 
shears cut the thread of life. Its symbol is a skull 
and crossbones. No light attends its presence. A 
few who feel more intensely than they think, phi- 
losophically and with some effort, speak of it sim- 
ply as the end of life. Others in despair because 
of present suffering seek it as a sure way of escape 
from the ills which seem too hard to be borne. But 
the number who dream that it offers possible relief 
is small. Even in this nineteenth century, after 
all the influence of civilization, discovery, and re- 
ligion, the common feeling concerning death is one 
of utmost and horrible dread. 



270 THE AGE OF FAITH 

Another class, and a far smaller one, is com- 
posed of the few scholars who study it scientific- 
ally. Theoretically they regard it as an incident 
in universal evolution. That their personal feelings 
about it are different from those of the more isno- 
rant does not follow, although because they are 
usually intelligent and strong, they more frequently 
excFcise self-control. They find death in all spheres 
which they try to explore ; it is found in the vege- 
table world and in the animal world as well as in 
that inhabited by humanity. From contact with it 
they become hardened to it. They resemble the 
Stoics in imperturbability, but they are human, and 
as anxious as any others to know whether death 
ends all. 

Another and still smaller group has cultivated 
the spirit of the Stoics. They have disciplined 
themselves so that they are able to face whatever 
comes with equanimity. This explains how some 
who are without Christian faith, who deny the ex- 
istence of God and the future life, pass from the 
earth apparently with all the heroism and calmness 
of saints. They have learned to control their emo- 
tions rather than to rise above them ; but feeling 
is not dead even where it is subdued. Fires that 
burn inwardly often burn most intensely. Those 
who have learned to accept the inevitable do so 
with as good a grace as possible, though their dread 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 271 

of its mystery may be as intense as that of others 
who are more demonstrative. 

To all alike the outlook is sad and without hope. 
Life has been a joy, but its end is desolation. The 
beautiful statue has been carved with infinite care 
into a figure of exquisite grace only to be broken 
into pieces at the last, and why — who can under- 
stand ? The great dome has been lifted into the 
air in order that it might fall into ruins when 
finished. The beneficence of a law which works 
toward well-being in far distant years, but sacrifices 
individuals on the way, offers poor compensation 
for those whose hearts are breaking with what they 
are bearing or dreading. 

Nothing more distinctly characterized the teach- 
ings of Jesus than what may be called the New way of 

-C 1 1 • i. £C ' J J. Regarding 

new way oi looking at sunering and at Death. 
death which was introduced by Him. He taught 
that suffering is not positive evil ; but that it is a 
step toward blessing. It is never either ordered or 
permitted as an end in itself, but in the hands of 
God it is used as a chisel is used in the hands of a 
sculptor. If the marble could speak, it would pro- 
test against the sculptor's blows, as our human 
hearts rebel at the processes by which we are dis- 
ciplined into grace and beauty. Death is never 
mentioned by Christ as an enemy, but rather as a 
sleep, a change from one room to another in the 



272 THE AGE OF FAITH 

Father's house. Paul speaks of the " last enemy," 
but it is o£ an enemy vanquished and of a victory 
won. To his vision death goes out of sight in the 
glory that is being revealed. The Christian view 
of death is different from any which the world had 
known before. There is a positive note in all the 
teaching of Jesus on this subject. He does not 
paint it in attractive colors ; and consequently offers 
no motive for suicide ; but He always speaks of it 
as rest and relief, as a change which works blessing, 
as something analogous to the recreating changes 
experienced in the body. After sleep comes the 
awaking. That which seems worst ends best. 
What we call death is only transition. 

But the words of Jesus, and the influence of 
His. life and teachings for well-nigh two thousand 
years, have made comparatively little difference 
with the way this subject is regarded by the mass 
of men. They face the mystery with terror ; they 
watch the approach of the enemy with indefina- 
ble and awful anticipations. However interpreted, 
and whatever the theory of its mission in the uni- 
verse, even where the element of terror is most 
largely eliminated, it is the supreme crisis toward 
which thought tends and concerning which inquiry 
never ceases. What is it ? Is it an end, or only 
a means ? Is it an abyss, or a bridge over an 
abyss ? Is it a great darkness, or a door into in- 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 273 

finite light? There are many ways of answering 
these questions, all of them of more or less value. 

There is the voice of nature. Nature is not 
without suffSfestions of something' brighter 

oo «3 o The Many 

beyond the grave. Summer follows win- witnesses. 
ter. The birds go, but they come again. The 
flowers fade, but it is only in order that they may 
bloom in fresher beauty. The stalks of grain seem 
to die, but they leave their seeds for other harvests 
in future years. One generation after another 
passes away, but new generations succeed. That 
which seems to end in decay rises again in glorious 
strength. Death has a large place in the universe, 
but always that of ministering to life. To the 
individual, nature may prophesy little that is en- 
couraging, but with a sure voice she presages the 
immortality of the race. The individual falls — 
the race goes on. In this fact is contained a pre- 
diction of the indestructibility of life. In one 
form of existence life may disappear, but it only 
waits to reappear in another form. This may give 
little hope to you and to me, since it seems to 
indicate that the race alone is immortal. But it 
is much to find that life in its essence is indestruc- 
tible. To that fact nature bears abundant witness. 
Rising above the natural world, we come to the 
common aspiration and longing of humanity. 
What that is may be learned from consciousness. 



274 THE AGE OF FAITH 

and from the experience of the race as it is re- 
corded in history, literature, and art. The univer- 
sal dread of death is a witness to the love of life. 
No person ever really longs to die. Relief from 
suffering or limitation is desired, and, to achieve 
that end, death may be sought, but only as a means 
of escape from some nearer evil. If that object 
could be realized in other and better ways, death 
would always be shunned. " If a man die, shall 
he live again ? " is more than an inquiry ; it is a 
testimony. It bears witness to faith in the per- 
manence of conscious being. 

This witness appears in another and more im- 
pressive form in the literature of the world. 
Through all its manifold creations runs the death- 
less aspiration for immortality. 

And what is true of literature is also true of 
art. The delicately carved mausoleums of Greece, 
the mighty pyramids of Egypt, the rude platforms 
of poles on which the American Indians place their 
dead, show that men of all classes in all times 
and all lands have coveted life. They have not 
only loved it, but have believed in its immortality. 
The story of the death of Socrates is typical. The 
philosopher could never have taught such sublime 
truths, if millions of others in humbler spheres had 
not held the same faith. He was the flower of all 
the past of Greece and of the world. Great men are 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 275 

like plants which blossom but once in a century. 
Into their intellectual and spiritual fibre have en- 
tered the thought and achievements of hundreds 
and thousands vi^ho have lived before them. A 
century flower is not the blossom of one stalk alone, 
but of thousands and millions which have converged 
to the same point. Plato was not one man alone, 
but the efflorescence of a race. So was Job, so 
was Dante, so were Milton, Browning, Tennyson, 
and a glorious choir of other singers whose music 
has been keyed to resurrection and life. 

The witness of consciousness as it has spoken in 
literature and as it speaks in those who live to-day 
is supported by the common teaching of philoso- 
phy and religion. Philosophy may be likened to 
a sphere with its two poles — one turning toward 
God, the other toward immortality. In every 
age and every land these have been the dominant 
questions. Does one ask as to reality ? The ques- 
tion instantly goes back to the Ultimate Reality, 
Does another seek the meaning of life? Instantly 
he faces the question. Does life really or only 
apparently end at the grave ? These are the 
supreme subjects of philosophy, and in this case 
that definite particle " the " should be written 
very large. The answer has been given in differ- 
ent ways. It sometimes seems as if there were 
no personal God in Buddhism ; and in one sense 



276 THE AGE OF FAITH 

there is not — in another there is. There are 
many sects of Buddhists. Some believe that be- 
hind the seen is only universal and impersonal 
law ; most if not all the sects agree that that law 
sometimes manifests itself in a conscious and bene- 
ficent being. The Buddhists look forward either 
to Nirvana, which is a state of absorption in God, 
or to the Western Paradise, in which conscious 
existence continues. The Hindus have a doctrine 
that they call Karma, The individual seems to 
die ; but all that he was in his essential and spir- 
itual nature is deathless. Whether we examine 
the religions of Greece, of Rome, of Persia, of 
India, or of later times, we find in one degree 
and another, in one form and another, something 
which may truly be called faith in God and in life 
beyond the grave. These voices of nature, of the 
soul of man, of history, of literature, of philoso- 
phy, of religion, are strangely and beautifully con- 
firmed by the latest word of modern science. At 
first it was thought that evolution necessitated 
atheism and infidelity. It has frequently been 
denounced as the substitution of law for a per- 
sonal God. That is not its final word. As step 
by step it has pushed from one sphere into another, 
in a nameless way, it has been found to confirm 
the teachings of humanity and of Christianity. 
It suggests the inquiry where the seed of progress 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 277 

which was sown in the primeval fire-mist came 
from. The beautiful civilization of the ages can- 
not be the result of chance, but must be the reali- 
zation of an intelligent plan. Thus evolution 
points backward to One who planted in the fire- 
mist the seeds of progress and civilization. The 
study of life even in its lower forms shows that 
the principle of sacrifice runs through all grada- 
tions of being ; that it begins in the very lowest, 
reaches on toward the highest, and then culmi- 
nates. Evolution gives a new meaning to the 
text which speaks of " the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world ; " and to that other one 
which beholds in the midst of the splendor of the 
throne the Lamb, which is the eternal symbol of 
sacrifice. Evolution not only points toward God 
and sacrifice, but it cannot be completed without 
a longer period than the threescore and ten exist- 
ence of man. It prophesies a grander destiny for 
our race than the grave. That which has been 
countless ages in perfecting cannot be " cast as 
rubbish to the void." Human life may have had 
its beginnings in the physical, but it must end in 
the spiritual. This is the latest word of evolution- 
ary science. Like prophets, its teachers stand with 
their faces toward the future, with expectancy and 
ho]3e unsurpassed even in the prophets of religion. 
They say, " Evolution . . . seems to be through 



278 THE AGE OF FAITH 

with the body, when it has fairly begun with the 
souL It has reached in our selfhood, conscious of 
its continuous identity, a new realm or order of 
existence ; it has crossed the threshold, and stands 
as a child of the Eternal in the Father's presence. 
The same self-conscious being who preserves his 
moral identity through the incessant changes of the 
molecular processes with which his life is connected 
in this body, has already reached a point of spirit- 
ual independence, although not yet of complete 
detachment from atomic matter ; that detachment, 
with possibility of new and better connection with 
the elemental forces, may be the last possible step 
in the evolution of the soul, — the last transforma- 
tion which is the beginning of the end and the 
possession of the final glory of life." ^ 

This chorus of voices confirms the teaching of 
Jesus when He said that death was only sleep, or 
a change from one room to another in the infinite 
house of God. . When we take narrow views, we 
may think there is little evidence for belief in con- 
tinuance of being, but larger vision makes it diffi- 
cult to doubt that life is a stream which no barriers 
can forever obstruct. They may deflect its course 
for a moment, but the stream broadens and deepens, 
and its sweep is onward and endless. 

There are two ways by which Christians may 

^ The Place of Death in Evolution, Smythe, pp. 109, 110. 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 279 

approach this subject. One is the direct, and the 
other the indirect. The direct is that afforded by 
the teachings of our Lord, and by the significance 
of His resurrection. At this time I am concerned 
solely with what may be called the indirect teach- 
ing of Christianity concerning the immortal life ; 
and I turn now to ask. What light does a rational 
interpretation of the instinct of Fatherhood cast on 
the inquiry, What lies beyond the grave ? 

I must recur to some principles which I believe 
have already been well established. The Fatherhood 
doctrine of Divine Fatherhood shows that taiity. 
God and man are of essentially the same nature. 
That does not mean that they are identically the 
same beings. Identity of nature does not imply 
identity of being. Every child is identical in na- 
ture with his father, and yet every child has an 
individuality peculiarly his own. The doctrine of 
the Fatherhood teaches that men and the Father 
who gave them being are partakers of the same 
nature. That does not mean merely that there are 
resemblances, but that in essence the natures are 
one. A child may differ in a thousand ways from 
his parents, and yet be the continuation of them in 
another generation. The vine is one, the nature 
of the vine and the branches is the same, but the 
branches and the vine are not the same. 

If God and man have identically the same nature, 



280 THE AGE OF FAITH 

then the inference is inevitable that man will live 
as long as God. The human body dies ; it is essen- 
tial to the thought of God that He never dies. The 
body is only the dress ; the real being is the spirit 
dwelling within. If God could die, there would be 
no God. If His children possess His being, they 
must also possess His immortality. Either the 
premise must be denied, or the conclusion must be 
accepted. 

But another inference from this doctrine is 
equally explicit. Fatherhood necessitates the con- 
tinuance of the relation between parent and child. 
If that relation endures, then man must live, not in 
a diffused and impalpable immensity, but as the 
child of God ; not as a mere impersonal emanation 
which is at last to be absorbed into His infinity, but 
as an eternal person. The thought that man is an 
emanation from God ; that he came out from Him 
as a ray of light from the sun, and that at last he 
will be absorbed in the universal glory, as the ray 
is absorbed in the splendor that fills the universe, 
was common in the elder philosophies and in some 
form of the elder religions, but it is a thing of the 
past. If that teaching were true, we should have 
no existence of our own. God is the Father, there- 
fore men are His children. Childhood means 
individuality, and individuality must continue as 
long as the relation between the parent and the 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 281 

child continues. If God is the everlasting Father, 
then man is His everlasting child. 

If man is the everlasting child of the everlasting 
Father, then throughout all the ages that Personauty 
are before him he will possess the quali- 
ties of personality, which is all that distinguishes 
him as in the image of God. A person is a being 
who is self-conscious, intelligent, has the power of 
choice and of love. If we could multiply intelli- 
gence, the power of choice and of love, to absolute 
perfection, we should have the truest possible con- 
ception of God. Since man is the child of God, he 
will possess the qualities of personality so long as 
that relation continues. It is these qualities 
which make us ourselves. Our bodies change ; they 
are reconstructed every year; not one atom is the 
same to-day as when we were children, and yet we 
are identically the same. Identity is a matter 
of spirit rather than of body. Identity persists 
even though the body is entirely new, and we can- 
not believe that it is affected by the last great 
change when the body finally decays. What we 
know and love in one another is something within 
the phenomenal, something spiritual. Tennyson 
has said : " Eternal form from form divides," but 
that is a form of spirit or personality rather than 
of matter. We love the face of our friend, but 
still more we love the spirit that is behind the face, 



282 THE AGE OF FAITH 

which illuminates it, and which manifests itself in 
intelligent choice and service. In short, that which 
is dear is the nature of which the body is but the 
dress. That is not simply the Ail, but something 
individual and personal. If that individuality con- 
tinues, as the fact of the Divine Fatherhood neces- 
sitates, then the old inquiry as to whether we shall 
know one another beyond the grave has a logical 
and necessary answer. What we know now is not 
so much matter as spirit, form as character, and 
what will be recognized then will be spirit freed 
from existing limitations. 

If once the Fatherhood of God is accepted, these 
conclusions are inevitable. If we can repeat the 
words of the creed, " I believe in God the Father 
Almighty," it will be but a short and easy path to 
another confession, equally far-reaching and com- 
forting, " I believe in the life everlasting." 

The message of Fatherhood to the race is one of 
A Message hopc and of blcssiug. It finds the world 

^^^' in the midst of sadness and dread expect- 
ancy. The very people who ought to be marching 
in the foremost files of all that is good and true are 
constantly involved in pitiful and disappointing 
controversies. Many of those who bear the name 
of Christian face the mysteries of existence with 
as little confidence as those who have never heard or 
read one word of the Christian revelation. Millions 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 283 

sing that Christ is risen, who forget that death has 
lost its sting and the grave its victory. Father- 
hood speaks with a loud and commanding voice, and 
its messao-e is something; like this : " You should 
trust the witness of nature concerning the death- 
lessness of being ; you should give heed to the wit- 
ness of consciousness and the voice of history ; you 
should listen carefully to every accent of those who 
have pondered these problems in other days, for 
they are all broken rays of the true light which 
reveals immortality. You should study the revela- 
tions which have come to other people with other 
forms of religion, for they were not given in vain, 
and are not without their value as evidence concern- 
ing the things of the spirit. You should give ear- 
nest attention to the voice of the Christ, for He spoke 
out of the heart of the Eternal, affirming resurrec- 
tion and continuance of being." Nature and con- 
sciousness, literature and religion, philosophy and 
science, and most of all the direct teaching of the 
Christ, are confirmed by the fact of the Father- 
hood, which points toward life reaching into other 
spheres. If the Father is immortal, the child must 
also be immortal. The one point upon which our 
emphasis is now placed, and which rises in the 
darkness of our midnight like a splendid star, is 
this. Fatherhood necessitates immortal life. 

The suggestions of this subject are many and 
full of inspiration. In " that endless progression 



284 THE AGE OF FAITH 

in far-off years," the seeds of blessing sown by 
Suggestions heroic souls, the self-sacrifice, and the 
ject. service of those who have lived and died 

for love's sake will grow and bear fruit. What 
the harvest will be, we dare not even predict ; but 
it will be far more glorious than anything of which 
we have dreamed on the earth. The children of 
God in the infinite palace of the Father, continu- 
ing their lives, free yet choosing holiness and love, 
— this is the hint of a glory of which it is auda- 
cious to try clearly to think. Of this, however, we 
may be perfectly sure : Fatherhood teaches us that 
some time conflicts in homes, between classes, and 
among nations will disappear ; that some time the 
war drum will throb no more, and the battle flag 
will be furled ; that, probably, the veil between 
the seen and the unseen will be rent, but whether 
rent or not, that those who have come to a reali- 
zation of their sonship will grow forever and for- 
ever toward the perfection of Him who will be ever 
approached, but never can be fully reached. In 
this we believe ; for this we work and pray ; toward 
this we constantly press ; for this we wait until the 
day dawn in which there shall be disclosed to our 
wondering vision at least a little more of the height 
and depth, the greatness and the glory, of what is 
implied and necessitated by the teaching of our 
Lord concerning the Fatherhood of God and the 
unending life of man. 



XII 

THE TEACHER FOR ALL AGES 

Jesus was the child of narrowness and provin- 
cialism, and yet He was neither narrow nor pro- 
vincial. He never traveled, nor studied in the 
schools ; so far as we know. He coidd speak but one 
language ; and after His childhood. He was never 
out of the country of His birth. His life was 
passed between Galilee and Judea. He belonged 
not only to a small part of the world, but to a short 
period of history. He was hardly thirty-three 
years of age when " He went into His glory on the 
sweep of an irresistible and fatal tide." And yet 
this peasant, with little knowledge of the world, 
with no scholastic learning, who died at the age 
when most really begin to live, has been the 
teacher of civilization for two thousand years. 
Others have influenced philosophy or science. He 
has identified religion with His own name. This 
requires an explanation, and it is not difficult to 
find. It was something for which he distinctly 
provided. 

The remark of Renan that Jesus has identified 



286 THE AGE OF FAITH 

religion with Christianity was profound and true. 
He belonged to Judea and to one time, but He has 
embodied in His teaching the essence of all faiths 
of all time, so that it is difficult to imagine how 
Christianity can ever be surpassed. Another pro- 
found remark of the usually not too profound 
Frenchman is, " His worship grows young without 
ceasing." That also is true, and the secret of the 
eternal youth of Christianity is found in the teach- 
ing of Jesus concerning the Holy Spirit. This is 
one of the most practical of truths. It has long 
been my belief that if any one Christian doctrine 
could be called more fundamental than another, it 
is that of the Holy Spirit. 

The teacher for all ages ! No mere man could 
No Man the ^c SO related to the swiftly changing cen- 
rary of all turics. The uoblcst mastcrs have passed 

Ages. 

to their rest to be succeeded by others. 
Zoroaster, Buddha, Mahomet all left the world 
better than they found it. Their teachings will 
not soon be forgotten, but the men no longer have 
vital power. No man in the flesh can teach all 
ages and lands. The objects of knowledge change. 
The world of one decade is not like that of an- 
other. No one person can keep pace with the 
years. What is true of a man is also true of a 
book. We misunderstand the teaching even of 
our Bible. It has power because it is vitalized 



THE TEACHER FOR ALL AGES 287 

by the Spirit of God. Letters written to little 
churches in Asia two thousand years ago, to peo- 
ple secluded from civilization, before the discov- 
eries of science, could not contain in detail all that 
is needed of ethics and religion in this century. 
We not only live on a different continent, but in 
a different world from the Komans and Galatians, 
We think about different things, and speak in 
different tongues. Words change their meaning. 
Language is like a river ; it receives the contribu- 
tions of thousands of rivulets. Languages to-day 
are very different from what they were one century 
ago, and still more unlike those of twenty centuries 
ago. New subjects necessitate new words. Books 
may contain principles applicable to all time, and 
that is what constitutes the surpassing excellence 
of our New Testament. 

But even principles have to be interpreted. 
How may we be sure that we are correct rp^^^ ^^^j^ 
in our understanding of them ? An in- ^^"^** 
fallible principle requires an infallible interpreter 
before it can teach infallible truth. No man can 
be a teacher for all ages, and no hooh, apart from 
its interpreter, can mean the same to all time. 
The teacher for all ages must be a personal spirit. 
Jesus said, "It is expedient for you that I go 
away." That is, the man of one age must give 
place to the Spirit who is for all time. Jesus said 



288 THE AGE OF FAITH 

in substance : " When I disappear from your sight 
I will continue my work. I will be to you exactly 
the same that I have been in the flesh, except that 
now you see me by the physical eye and then you 
will see by the Spirit's eye. Have I been a 
teacher of truth? I will guide you into all truth. 
Have I been your helper ? When great burdens 
press upon you, and sorrows come in like a flood, 
you will realize the truth of my words : ' Lo ! I am 
with you alway.' Have I lifted you out of sin and 
brought you into the family of God ? In better 
ways, and with greater power, the same service 
will continue forever." Jesus Christ is the Teacher 
for all ages, because he is alive forevermore in 
the Spirit. 

It is sometimes said that it would be easy to fol- 
low Christ if we could see Him as His disciples 
saw Him. He is nearer to us than He was to them. 
Did He heal diseases ? He heals them now. Did 
He enter into human suffering wdth a fullness which 
could be hinted at only by death ? He is in the 
midst of the same great sacrifice to-day. The 
work of salvation did not begin on Calvary, and 
did not end there. The Lamb was slain from the 
foundation of the world. 

To this truth Jesus frequently referred, and it 
needs emphasis in these times. We are told by 
some, who should know better, that the dead hand 



THE TEACHER FOR ALL AGES 289 

of the past is upon us ; that there is no room for 
progress in Christianity. History proves progress in 

Christian 

that untrue. Limited at first by pagan- Thought. 
ism, it has broken its limitations and grown 
toward purity. A seed falls into a crevice of the 
rocks on the Sierras. It must force its way up- 
ward and send its roots downward by rending rocks 
asunder. It will not show its results in one year, 
or many years. So the teachings of Christ have 
grown into the life of humanity. They have been 
misconstrued in almost every age, because their 
realization has been so difficult ; but to-day they 
are better understood and more widely appreciated 
than ever before. 

We were not intended to remain intellectually 
stationary. Are we not the disciples of Jesus ? 
Yes ; but not so much of the Jesus who was on the 
earth as of the Christ who is living now. He 
is the Christ of New York, of London, of India, 
and of Africa ; the Christ who, in the Spirit, is 
leading the world toward better things. Let us 
understand. If He could speak to us, Jesus would 
say : "I am as near to you as I was to Peter and 
James and John. I am leading you. I am to you 
all that I was to them. Think of them ; but as 
they followed me in the flesh, so do you follow me 
in the Spirit." 

Our life is not that of peasants in the hill coun- 



290 THE AGE OF FAITH 

try of Palestine. What a different world ! Con- 
tinents have been discovered. Science has explored 
the mysteries. The constellations have a language. 
Nations are tied together. There is a unity of 
interest now of which there was then no anticipa- 
tion. When the missionary enterprise was started, 
early in the century, the greater part of the world 
was asleep : now it thrills with life. We send 
missionaries to the Orient ; it sends missionaries 
to us. China is as near to London now as then 
Jerusalem was to Damascus. What shall we be- 
lieve in these times when the heavens are read like 
an open book ; when the stars are finding voices ; 
when the hidden spaces of the earth are found to 
be written all over with records of the past ; when 
people from every land jostle on almost every 
street ; when thought is no longer symbolized by 
rills with mountains between them, but by an ocean 
into which all the rivers flow ? Shall we go back 
to that little hill country and to eighteen hundred 
years ago for the final article of belief ? If we did 
that, we should find something which has never 
been transcended. Whittier never wrote anything 
truer than the following from his " Questions of 
Life : " — 

" I gather up the scattered rays 
Of wisdom in the early days, 
Faint gleams and broken, like the light 
Of meteors in a northern night, 



THE TEACHER FOR ALL AGES 291 

Betraying to the darkling earth 
The unseen sun which gave them birth ; 
I listen to the sibyl's chant, 
The voice of priest and hierophant ; 
I know what Lidian Kreeshna saith, 
And what of life and what of death 
The demon taught to Socrates ; 
And what, beneath his garden-trees 
Slow-pacing, with a dreamlike tread, 
The solemn-thoughted Plato said ; 
Nor lack I tokens, great or small, 
Of God's clear light in each and all, 
While holding with more dear regard 
The scroll of Hebrew seer and bard, 
The starry pages promise-lit 
With Christ's Evangel over-writ. 
Thy miracle of life and death, 
Holy One of Nazareth ! " 

But, after all, what makes that teaching a mira- 
cle in the midst of the ages is its adjust- Truth to be 
ment to all time. The source of author- varioi^ 
ity is not in something said or done eigh- 
teen hundred years ago, but in a personal teacher 
who is active now. Jesus in effect said : " Re- 
member that as I lead you now, so I will lead men 
beneath the expanding horizons, and in the midst of 
the ferment of thought and the bewildering claims 
upon loyalty, in still later days." Our Teacher is 
the same that Peter and James and John had. He 
may repeat the very words that He spoke to them, 
or He may have other messages. " What is the 



292 THE AGE OF FAITH 

true relation of man to man ? Shall I read what 
Jesus said to his disciples ? " Yes. " Shall I take 
their interpretation ? " They did not interpret. 
He must tell me what the principle means when 
applied to the life of to-day. Did He say, " Love 
one another as I have loved you " ? That means 
something different for an employer of labor in 
the nineteenth century from what it meant for the 
fisherman to whom it was spoken. Did He say, 
" I am the truth " ? That meant one thing to 
those who heard it ; it means something different 
to those before whom the spaces and the silences 
have been opened. Did He say, " Eender unto 
Caesar the things that are Csesar's, and unto God 
the things that are God's " ? That meant one 
thing when Augustus was on the throne ; it meant 
something different twenty-five years ago in the 
American and Swiss republics ; and it means 
something still different in these days of demo- 
cracy and socialism. Now the people are Caesar. 
Did Jesus say, " Resist not evil " ? How shall 
those words be interpreted in Armenia, in Cuba, 
and on the Philippine Islands? The problem of 
duty is constantly changing. 

The New Testament contains principles which 
The Teacher havc to bc interpreted and applied to 

needed , n ^ • m 

To-day. the couditious of the new time. Ine 
Teacher is needed to-day quite as much as two 



THE TEACHER FOR ALL AGES 293 

thousand years ago. The expansion of life, the 
more generous treatment of man by man, the 
amelioration of laws, the annihilation of tyran- 
nies, the bringing in of the rule of the people, 
show that the Spirit is not only interpreting truth, 
but that He is the actual leader of events. " How 
shall I be a Christian?" Follow Him. "But 
follow whom — Jesus of Nazareth ? " No ; follow 
the living Christ who, in the ways of the Spirit, 
makes known so clearly that none need misunder- 
stand what is right, what is duty, and what is 
truth. " But may we carry it still further, and 
say that Christ is saving men now as when on the 
earth ? " Yes. The work of Jesus of Nazareth 
was completed ; the work of the Spirit will not 
be completed until the triumph of truth and love. 
In every age men have been convicted of sin, led 
from evil ways, and helped toward a realization 
of their sonship. It has been as distinctly the 
result of the Spirit's touch as the healing of the 
leper was the result of the touch of the hand of 
Jesus. The Spirit now says, "Follow," as dis- 
tinctly as any voice spoke to the disciples by the 
Sea of Galilee. Those who heed are led from vice 
and selfishness toward love and holiness. The 
Christ in the Spirit is doing exactly the same 
works to-day that He did when He was on the earth. 
He is " the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." 



294 THE AGE OF FAITH 

What Jesus was during His earthly career, God 
had been in the past and will be in the future, — 
the Helper, the Teacher and the Saviour. 

The most conclusive evidences of Christianity 
Abiding Evi- are uot aucicnt wonders. Why should 

dences of 

Christianity. 1 offer the rcsurrectiou of Lazarus, as the 
chief proof of the power which is leading in the 
transformation of the world to-day, to those who 
have seen men dead in sin raised to hope, purity, 
and love? Why should I repeat the story of 
Jairus' daughter while in these ^days cures quite 
as wonderful are worked by the power of God? 
Why should I go to the story of Jesus walking on 
the water, when the whole development of science 
shows that there is a power behind visible things 
which, if properly used, is as wonderful as that 
manifested by Him? Properly understood, the 
whole progress of the world — its steamships, its 
telegraphs, its telephones, its X-rays — exhibits 
supernatural power. The age of miracles has not 
passed. As the race approaches the stature of 
Christ, it is better able to do the things which He 
did. Growth into the life of the Spirit means 
growth into power over nature. It does not mean 
the abolition of the physical, but superiority to it. 
Tennyson had the vision of a prophet when he 
wrote of " the crowning race : " — 



THE TEACHER FOR ALL AGES 295 

*' Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 
On knowledge ; under whose command 
Is earth and earth's, and in their hands 
Is nature like an open book." 

" Is there any evidence which warrants belief in 
any spiritual leadership of the race ? " spiritual 

Leadership 

I reply: Have you ever thought of the of the Race. 
meaning of the steady and constant conflict be- 
tween truth and error, selfishness and love ? Why 
does truth crushed to earth always rise ; and love 
never weary in its battle against vice and sin? 
Generations come and go, and men and women, 
perfectly conscious that they will lay down their 
lives in a forlorn struggle, take up the work and 
carry it on. It is not because of what they see, 
for that is all against them ; it is not because of 
what they can gain, for they will gain little except 
suffering and death ; they do it because they have 
heard a spiritual voice calling them to the higher 
levels. Wherever, unappreciated and alone, men 
or women are striving for the better time, there 
are sure evidences of the presence of the Spirit. 

In proportion as we realize Christ's power we 
do not need to go back to Galilee and Judea ; we 
do not need to traverse the centuries — we need 
only to keep our hearts pure, our minds open, our 
spirits reverent, and there will come to us visions 
of truth and right, of duty and service, as splendid 



296 THE AGE OF FAITH 

and inspiring as ever came to saint or sage in 
earlier days. We read and revere the story of 
the Master who lived and died so many years ago ; 
it is the sweetest story ever written ; but we must 
not forget His words : "It is expedient for you 
that I go away." He did not wish his disciples to 
think too much of Him as He was then. He wished 
them to understand that He belonged to all time, 
and that those who would live in the long, long 
future would have the same great Teacher. The 
name he then assumed was the " Spirit of Truth." 
If instead of calling ourselves Christians we desired 
only to be followers of the Spirit of Truth, we 
should be known by a name quite as appropriate 
as at present. 

We live our lives in littleness and weariness, 
in discouragement, and sometimes in despair ; we 
think we know nothing and can do nothing ; one 
is ignorant and another is sick ; one is poor and 
another has no friends ; but all alike have the 
same great Teacher. Above the peasant in the 
fields, the miner deep in the earth, the sick not 
able to leave their beds, the statesman burdened 
with the affairs of nations, the scientist exploring 
the mysteries of the earth and the stars, is one and 
the same Spirit, leading all in different paths but 
ever toward the one great end, — the life which 
was in Jesus Christ, the love which is God, and 



THE TEACHER FOR ALL AGES 297 

which will fill the earth with the Kingdom of God. 
The hearts of the disciples burned within them as 
they walked by the way, and those who are pure, 
who love the truth, and who would rather suffer 
loss than do wrong, may be sure that the same 
presence is walking beside them, and that some 
time and in some way they will realize the great- 
ness of these words, " But the Comforter, even the 
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to 
your remembrance all that I said unto you." 

1 Johnsdv. 26. 



\ 



I 



i 



INDEX 



■ Abolition of slavery in United States, 

108. 
Absolute, The, 33, 34. 
Agassiz, 6. 
Age, of criticism, 15. 

Of doubt, 1, 8. 

Of faith, 2, 3, 6, 19. 

Of humanity, 105. 
Agnosticism, 5. 
Agnostics, 5, 6. 

" All Sorts and Conditions of Men," 7. 
Alva, Duke of, 97. 
American Board, 6. 
Anarchism, 125, 134. 
"Apparent Failure," 240. 
Appreciation of Man, 109. 
Aristotle, 112. 
Arnold, Matthew, 6. 
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 141, 146. 
Atheism, 141. 
Atonement, the, doctrine of, 202. 

Governmental theory of, 203. 

Moral influence theory of, 205. 

Satisfaction theory of, 202. 

Bacon, Lord, 134. 

" Ballad of Trees and the Master," 

10. 
Barrie, 7. 

Basis of faith in brotherhood, 107. 
Beethoven, 36, 44. 
Belief in the best, 152-155. 
Beneficence of nature, 99. 
Bourget, Paul, 6. 
British Scientific Association, 5. 
Brotherhood, 103. 

A basis of optimism, 134. 

Altruistic, 106. 

And other social ideals, 124. 

Contents of, 114. 



Contrasted with selfishness, 131. 

Depends on Fatherhood, 107. 

Implies equality, 128. 

Implies the race a family, 129. 

Of man to be realized, 121. 

Realization of, the supreme social 
ideal, 127. 

Will infuse divine principles into 
legislation, 131. 
Browning, Mrs., 139. 
Brovming, Robert, 8, 46, 79, 93, 151, 

178, 240, 251. 
Brunetiere, 6. 
Bubonic plague, 155. 
Buddha, 15, 79, 134. 
Buddhism, 81, 140, 145, 146, 169. 
Buddhists, 13, 89, 111, 112, 275. 
Bunyan, John, 35, 158. 
Burns, Robert, 239. 
BushneU, Dr. Horace, 205. 
Byron, 75, 77, 78, 142. 

Caesar, 66, 104. 
Calvin, John, 239. 
Calvinism, 148, 170. 

Its teaching concerning the Atone- 
ment, 203. 
Campbell, John McLeod, 205. 
Celestial City, 35. 
Charity, Crusade of, 20. 

Inspiration of, 21. 
Christ, The living, 287. 
" Christian, The," 7. 
Christian and philanthropic agencies 

illustrate faith, 21. 
Christian Science, 18, 19, 146. 
Classes of Thinkers, 122. 
Christianity, Evidences of, 294. 
" Cleon," 8. 
Cologne Cathedral, 36. 



300 



INDEX 



" Communion of the Christian with 

God," 53. 
Communion with God, 216. 

Inevitable, 217. 

Natural, 217. 
Communism, 106, 124, 125, 134. 
Conception of God, 26. 

Determines ideals of conduct, 110, 
111. 

Ethnic, 111. 

Hebrew, 111. 

In Greece, 110. 

In India, 109. 
Concord Reformatory, 246. 
Confucianism, 14. 
Confucius, 134. 

Conscience witnesses to sin, 172. 
Cowper, 45. 
Creeds, 18. 
Critics, 16, 17, 18. 
Criticism, 

Age of, 15. 

A sign of faith, 16. 
Crockett, 7. 

Crookes, Sir William, 4. 
" Crossing the Bar," 22. 
Crusade of charity an evidence of 

faith. The, 20. 
Crusades, The, 19. 
" Cry of the Children," 80. 
" Cry of the Human," 80, 139. 
Current fads, signs of faith, 18. 

Dante, 44, 79, 158, 232, 251, 275. 
Danton, 108. 

Darwin, Charles, 4, 6, 193. 
Dawson, Sir William, 6. 
Death, dreaded, 269. 

Christian view of, 271, 272. 

Spiritual, 261. 
" Death in the Desert, A," 8, 9. 
Delectable Mountains, 35. 
Democracy, 107. 
Depraved nature, 193, 194. 
Desire for truth, 15, 17. 
Dickens, Charles, 130. 
Divine Immanence, 42, 100. 
Doctrine, of the Incarnation, The, 9. 

Of Jesus, 112. 

Of the Trinity, 

Found in philosophy, 37. 

Not explained in Scripture, 37. 



Doubt, 3, 5, 10, 17. 
Drummond, Prof. Henry, 6. 
Dualism, Persian, 260. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 204, 238. 

President, of New Haven, 204. 
Eliot, George, 6, 78, 142. 
" Elsie Venner," 7. 
Emerson, 157. 
Environment, 56. 
Equality, in France a lie, 128. 

Not a blessing, 129. 
Eschylus, 171. 

" Eternal Goodness, The," 9, 241. 
Eternal^ The word, defined, 239. 
Ethnic Religions, 

Study of, 12, 15. 

Witness to sin, 173. 
" Euthanasia," 76. 
"Evangeline,"-136. 
Evangelization of the world, 14. 
Evolution, 4, 5, 6, 93, 155, 156, 170. 

The place of death in, 268, 277, 
278. 
Evolutionist, 6. 
Exodus, The, 104. 

Faber, F. W., 92. 
Fads, 18, 19. 
Fair bairn, 21, 53. 
Faith-healing, 18. 
Faith, 

Definition of, 1, 2. 

Age of, 2, 3, 6, 19. 

And science, 3. 

An intellectual attitude, 4, 13. 

The scientist, a man of, 4. 

And hterature, 6. 

Universahty of, 13, 19, 22. 

Men of, 5, 13, 17. 

The basis of religion, 14. 

Evidence of its reality, 14. 

The note of the new movement in 
theology, 17. 

Renascence of, 18. 

Crusade of charity an evidence of, 
20. 

Service an expression of, 21. 

Pervasiveness of, 22. 

Gospel for an age of, 24, 25. 

Of the Orient, 81. 

Essential to optimism, 84, 94. 



i 

I 
1 



i 



INDEX 



301 



Effect of, 87. 

In Divine Fatherhood reasonable, 
152. 

Signs of, 
Criticism, 16. 
Current fads, 18. 
Father, the word used, 

In New Testament, 62. 

By Jesus, 62, 63. 

In the Trinity, 65. 

In baptism, 65. 

In prayer, 65. 

To teach doctrine of Providence, 
66. 

To teach nature of God, 66. 
Fatherhood of God, 

Gospel of, 25, 39. 

Interpreted, 56, 57. 

Implies holiness, 67. 

Dimly comprehended, 68. 

History in the hands of, 96. 

Principle of, applied to sorrow, 
165. 

And sin, 180, 181. 

Comprehensiveness of. Univer- 
sality of, 185. 

Strongest motive for righteous- 
ness, 188. 

Not recognized by all, 199. 

And the Atonement, 206. 

Gives salvation, 207, 208. 

Free grace a necessity of, 210. 

Explains prayer, 225. 
Fatherhood, 

God revealed by human, 57. 

Contents of, 58-60. 

Sanctity of, felt by imcivilized 
races, 71. 

Interprets life, 92, 93. 

Implies identity of nature, 114. 

Interprets brotherhood, 120, 121. 

Determines duties and relations 
of children, 123. 

Is love in action, 190. 
Faust, 171. 
Fiction, 7, 12. 
Forgiveness, 209. 
Freedom, 

Of man, 97. 

Of the spirit, 18. 

Gilder, Richard Watson, 10. 



God, 

Conception of, 26. 

Creator, the, 27. 

Preserver, the, 27. 

Prayer reveals, 28. 

Is the universe, 29. 

Choosing to reveal Himself, 31, 32. 

Absolute, the, 34. 

Spirit of the universe, the, 35. 

Revealed in the universe, 36. 

Is love, 41. 

Reveals Himself, 
In nature, 41. 
In history, 41. 
In Jesus Christ, 41. 
In the Holy Spirit, 41. 

Creator and Lord of all, the, 43. 

No people without Him, 49. 

Transcendent, 47. 

Immanent, 47. 

In humanity, 49. 

The word explained, 49, 50. 

Not only the Father of believers, 
64. 

Father Almighty, the, 67. 

Existence of, assumed, 98. 

Interpreted by Fatherhood, 51, 
72, 98, 113, 120, 165. 
Goethe, 36, 77, 78, 171. 
Golden Age, The, 96. 
Gospel, The, 

For an age of faith, 24. 

Of Fatherhood, 25. 

Rational basis of optimism, 25. 
Grace, 210. 
Gray, Asa, 6. 
Greece, 274. 
Gulick, John L., 6. 

Hamlet, 136, 171. 

Hardy, Thomas, 6. 

Harris, Prof. Samuel, 21, 43, 78, 148. 

Harrison, Frederic, 6. 

Heine, 142. 

Heredity, 175, 194. 

Herod, 66. 

Herrmann of Marburg, 53, 58. 

" Higher Pantheism, The," 46. 

Hinduism, 134. 

Hindus, The, 112, 251, 276. 

Holiness, 195, 196. 

Holy GraU, 232. 



802 



INDEX 



Holy Spirit, The doctrine of the, 40, 

41. 
Homer, 16, 77, 79. 
Hope, 282. 
Howard, 121. 

Human vehicle of revelation. The, 29. 
Humanitarianism, 106. 
Humanity — its aspirations, 273. 
Huxley, 4, 170. 
Hypnotism, 18. 

Ideal of Jesus, 126. 

Idealism, 55, 122. 

Identity of nature between man and 
God, 216. 

Iliad, The, 77, 79. 

Immanence of God, Doctrine of, 239. 

Immortality of God, 283. 

Incarnation, The doctrine of the, 9. 

India, 109. 

India's solution of the problem of sin, 
169. 

Individuals in the Father's hands, 95. 

Inductive method. The, 55. 

" In His Steps," 8. 

" In Memoriam," 9, 23, 136, 158. 

Inquiry, 5, 23, 25. 

And doubt not synonymous, 3. 

Inquisition, The, 96. 

Interest in social questions, 104. 

Interpretation of God in the con- 
sciousness of Christ, 54. 

James, Prof., 2. 
James and John, 65. 
Japan, Old religions of, 109. 
Jesus Christ, 20, 24. 

Ideal of. The, 126. 

Inner life of, The, 53. 

Supreme optimist, The, 92. 

Teachings of, 119. 
Jews, The, 13, 117. 
Job, 83. 

Book of, The, 136. 
Jowett, 144. 
Judaism, 64. 
Judas, 65. 
Juggernaut, 80. 
Justice of God, 160. 

Karma, 145. 
Kelvin, Lord, 5. 



Kingdom of God, 101. 
Kinship of nature, 30. 
Knowledge of the Divine 

through the human, 32. 
Koran, 14. 



gained 



Lanier, Sidney, 8, 9. 

Law, The, witnesses to sin, 172. 

Lazarus, 191. 

Lear, 136, 171. 

Liberty of utterance, 239. 

Liddon, 12. 

" Light of Asia, The," 141, 146. 

Literature, 2, 7, 8, 12, 15, 21, 274. 

And doubt, 10. 

And faith, 6. 

A witness to sin, 171. 
Living Religions, 89. 
" Locksley HaU, Fifty Years After," 

22. 
Logos doctrine, 38, 39. 
Louis XIV., 108. 
Lourdes, 15. 

Love, most evident in its relation to 
the unworthy, 200. 

Perfect, must manifest itself, 
39. 

Pervades the universe, 181. 

Requires worthy object, 120. 

Responds to the longing in hu- 
manity, 38. 

Reveals itself in God, 38. 

Seeks appreciation, 38. 
Lowell, 8. 

Macbeth, 171. 

MacDonald, George, 7. 

Man and the universe to be studied, 32. 

Divine, 32. 
Marat, 108. 
" Marcella," 7. 
Marguerite, 171. 

Mary, the mother of our Lord, 49. 
Matheson, Dr., 47, 169. 
Maurice, F. D., 205. 
Mayahsan, 15. 
Mecca, 15. 
Mental Science, 18. 
Mephistopheles, 171. 
Middle Ages, The, 19. 
Milton, John, 35, 79, 148, 158, 260, 
275. 



\ 



INDEX 



303 



Missions, 14, 22, 31. 
Mohammedans, 13, 89. 
Moore, Sir Thomas, 134. 
Morley, John, 6. 
Moses, 104. 

Miiller, Prof. Max, 14. 
Murillo, 16. 

Nature, The voice of, 273. 

Nature, Worship of, 51. 

Negro, Treatment of, 117. 

" New Atlantis, The," 134. 

New Birth, the, Doctrine of, 194, 201. 

Preceded by repentance, 212. 
New England Theology, 204. 
Newman, 21. 
Nicene Creed, The, 6. 
Nirvana, 81, 135, 141, 276. 
Novels, 2, 7. 
Novelists, 11. 

Occultism, 18. 

" Ode to Immortality, The," 175. 

Odyssey, The, 79. 

" Old Creole Days," 7. 

Old faiths, 22. 

Omar Khayyam, 77. 

Oppression of poor, 118. 

Optimism, 

Appears with the revelation of 

God, 95. 
Basis of, 25, 74, 76, 92. 
Coexists with faith in Fatherhood 

of God, 95. 
Has relations to the individual, 
the state, the universe, 133, 
254. 
Proof of the divinity of the Chris- 
tian revelation, 92. 
Optimists, 96. 
Oratory, 21. 
" Oiu- Father," 65. 
" Our Master," 9. 

Pantheism, 29, 34. 
"Paradise Lost," 148. 
Paradise, The western, 276. 
Park, Prof., of Andover, 204. 
Parliament of Religions, 13. 
Parsees, 13. 
Paul, 4. 
Penal suffering, 241, 244, 250. 



Perfection, of character, 158. 

Of God, 38. 
Persians, The, 81. 
Personality, 33, 34, 281. 
Pessimism, 2, 11, 23, 74, 75. 

Disappears with the revelation of 

God, 95. 
Gospel dispels, 24. 
In Literature, 11, 82. 
Inevitable where there is no faith 

in God or a future life, 82. 
Justifies itself. 
By personal observation, 77, 82. 
By testimony of those who find 

existence a failure, 77. 
By personal experience, 82. 
Modern, 142. 
No room for, 228. 
Widespread, 81. 
Pessimists, 2, 96. 
Peter, 65. 

Philanthropic agencies, 21. 
Philosophy, 31. 
Hindu, 34. 
"Pippa Passes," 8. 
Plato, 44, 112, 134, 144, 175, 199, 275. 
Poets, 7, 11, 12. 

Witness of, 8. 
Poetry, Lyrical, 21. 
Power of choice, 180, 189, 190, 191. 
"Practice of Presence of God," 227. 
Prayer, 23, 28, 215. 

Answers to, objected to, 222. 

Always gains response, 231. 

In accordance with God's will, 

227. 
Belief in, found in all nations, 

217. 
Christian teaching about, 219. 
Christ's example in, 219. 
Defined, 217. 
The expression of our best de- 

su-es, 230. 
Illustrates interaction between 

two worlds, 223-225. 
Intercessory, 220. 
Intercourse with God, 232. 
Two parts of. 
Petition, 220. 
Resignation, 220. 
Where offered, 226. 
Preexistence, Doctrine of, 174. 



304 



INDEX 



Problem, of optimism, 88. 
Of religion, 91. 
Of suffering and sorrow, 86. 
Attempted solutions, 144. 
Interpreted by Fatherhood of 

God, 165. 
Space and time in relation to, 
161. 
Progress, a reality, 89, 289. 

Of the world. Religion the su- 
preme force in, 14. 
Prometheus, 13G. 
Punishment for sin, 

Doctrine of, 234, 235, 238, 246. 
Different opinions concerning doc- 
trine of, 237-239. 
Influence of poets on doctrine of, 

239. 
In the New Testament, 248. 
Puritan revolution, 104. 
Purpose of God, 98. 

" Quo Vadis," 7. 

Race prejudice, irrational, 115. 
Raphael, 16, 44. 

Religion, Comparative, Study of, 12. 
Renan, 285. 
Repentance, 198, 262. 
"Republic, The," 134, 144. 
Responsibility, 189, 190. 
Retribution, 243, 253, 256, 257. 
Revelation of God, The, 24. 

By touch of Spirit, 40. 

Condition of knowledge. The, 
31. 

Defined, 217. 

The human vehicle of, 29. 

Limitations of, 236, 237. 

Through man, 32. 

Through the universe, 32. 
Revolutionists, French, 107. 
Rhys Davids, 145, 146. 
Richelieu, 108. 
Righteousness, strongest motive for. 

The, 188. 
" Ring and the Book, The," 46, 240. 
" Robert Elsmere," 7. 
Robespierre, 108. 
Romanes, George J., 5, 6. 
Rome, 18. 
" Rubaiyat," 78. 



Sacred Books of the East, The, 13, 14. 
Salvation, 192. 

Expressed by Fatherhood, 207, 
208. 
Satisfaction in achievement a com- 
pensation for suffering, 160. 
"Saul," 8. 

" Scarlet Letter, The," 7. 
Schopenhauer, 75, 142. 
Science, Age of, 6. 

Definition of. A, 4. 

And faith, 3, 43. 

Leads to faith, 4. 

Progress of, 5. 

Revelation recognized by, 31. 
Scientists, 5, 6, 17. 
Scriptures, the. Teaching of, 62. 
Selfishness and brotherhood con- 
trasted, 130. 
Sermon on the Mount, The, 62. 
Service to humanity, 20, 21. 
Shakespeare, 16, 171. 
Sin, 

Consequences of, The, discipli- 
nary, 186. 

Defined, 167, 168. 

Expedients to account for, 174. 

Explained by heredity, 175. 

In the best moral system, 179. 

Its enormity shown by Father- 
hood of God, 181-183. 

Its place in evolution, 170. 

Its real nature, 211. 

A nightmare, 178. 

Resist tendencies to, 189. 

The result of ignorance, 176. 
Of imperfect development, 177. 

Will be prevented, 183. 

Witnessed by. 
Conscience, 172. 
Ethnic Religions, 173. 
Legal systems, 172. 
Literature, 171. 
" Singular Life, A," 7. 
Skepticism, 3, 7. 
Skeptics, 5, 6, 17. 
Smith, George Adam, 21. 
Smythe, Newman, 2G8. 
Social ideal. The supreme, 127. 
Social problem, 113. 
Social settlements, 20. 
Social struggle misrepresented, 118. 



INDEX 



305 



Socialism, 100, 124, 134. 
Sociology, 103. 
Socrates, 112, 274. 
Son, The, 

Creation ascribed to, 39. 

God revealing Himself by, 39. 
Sorrow, 139. 

And suffering, alone, not pleasing 
to God, 1G2. 

Interpreted by Jesus, 1G3. 

Attitude of individual toward, 
164. 
Spasmodic efforts towards social alle- 
viation, 122. 
Spencer, Herbert, 193, 199. 
Spirit, 

Chooses, 33. 

Everywhere, 41. 

Loves, 33. 

Nature the abode of, 33, 

Regulates the body, 32. 

The ultimate reality, 32. 
Spiritualism, 18. 
Spontaneous beliefs, 41. 
Spurgeon, 105. 

St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 96. 
St. James, 64, 243. 
St. John, 48, 62. 
St. Mark, 62. 
St. Matthew, 62. 
St. Luke, 62. 
St. Paul, 196. 

Writings of, 62, 
Saint Simon, 125. 
Ste. Anne de Beaupr^, 15. 
Stevenson, R. L., 7. 

Prayer of, 11. 
Stewart, Balfour, 6. 
Stoics, 95, 141, 270. 
Stoicism, 81, 140, 141. 
" Story of Mumu," 119. 
" Story of a Heathen, Sojourning in 

GalUee, A. d. 32," 10, 11. 
Suffering, of creation, 8. 

In animal world, 138. 

Caused by our human nature, 158. 

Not ordained by God, 157. 

Not sent to one to benefit others, 
159. 

Retributive, 242. 
Suffering and sorrow, 

Means to blessing, 154, 



A problem, 136, 137, 143. 
Interpretation of. 

By Atheism, 142. 

By the " Absolute Reason," 
148. 

By Buddhism, 140, 144. 

By Calvinism, 148. 

By Christian Science, 146. 

By Fatherhood, 150-152, 156. 

By Stoicism, 141. 
Systems of theology, 236. 

Tantalus, 136. 

" Task, The," 45. 

Tate, Prof., 6. 

Teacher for to-day, 292. 

Teachings of Jesus, 119. 

Tennyson, 8, 9, 22, 46, 79, 158, 240, 

275, 281, 294. 
Theism, 141. 
Theology, Governing principle in, 73, 

103. 
" Thirty Years' War," 96, 
" Tiny Tim," 130. 
Tolstoi, Count, 8. 
Torquemada, 97. 
Tourgenieff, 119. 
Transcendence, 44. 
Transmigration, Doctrine of, 145, 
Trepitika, 14. 

Trinity, the. Doctrine of, 37. 
Truth, Search for, 13, 23. 

Triumph of, 19. 
Tyndall, Prof., 4, 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 7. 
Uniformity of nature, 222, 223. 
Unity, Perception of, 52, 53. 
Universal salvation. Advocates of, 

236. 
Universe, 5, 27, 28, 32. 

Pervaded by Fatherhood, 98-102. 
"Unseen Universe, The," 6. 
"Utopia," 134. 

Vedic Hymns, 169. 
Vengeance, 248, 252. 
Von Hartman, 75, 142. 

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 6. 

Waring, 121. 

Whittier, 8, 9, 240, 241, 290. 



soe 



INDEX 



Witness of the Poets, The, 8. 

Of the study of Comparative Re- 
ligion, 12. 
Worship of Greek gods, 110. 
Wordsworth, 175» 



Young, Prof. C. A., 5. 

Zend Avesta, 14. 
Zola, 6, 142. 
Zoroaster, 81. 



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